An article in the New York Times (May 27,2011) describes a decision by the United Nations Children’s Fund to list prices paid for vaccines on its website. The goal is to permit price transparency and thus, perhaps, to lower prices paid by all agencies for children’s vaccines.  But to the extent that suppliers work with available budgets would it make sense to permit such price variation, so that supplier costs are covered across all procurements ? Could prices rise for everyone as a result ? Or is the level of global competition not sufficiently high to permit price pressures on suppliers, with price publicity a feasible tool to induce competition ?