Why should the govt buy left over flu vaccine?

[napi21]

I've been listening to Nightline, and because the mfg's of vaccines aren't willing to make what is projected to be a sufficient supply is because what's left is tossed, so it's their loss. Ted's suggestion is that the govt buy the left over doses to solve the problem.

I think that's BS!

Law firms are required to do a certain amount of pro-bono work, businesses are required to pay for workers comp...the list of requirements is long.

Why can't vaccine manufacturers ber required, as a cost of doing business, to make XXX doses of flu vaccine?

Every business has losses for one reason or another. Grocery stores buy produce that goes bad before it all sells, meat that goes out of date before it's all sold...it gets THROWN AWAY! Why are the vaccine manufacturers exempt?

[aquart]

1. This is so easy to answer.

Because their response is not to make any at all.

Ball in your court.

[napi21]

3. You missed the point! Making none isn't an option!

I said, lawyers have to do some pro-bono work to keep their license. All drug houses are licensed and have to pass strict inspections just to remain in business. As part of keeping that license, a vaccine mfg would have to make a certain amount of flu vaccine! They make LOTS of $$ on other vaccines and this would just have to be absorbed as a cost of doing business!

[aquart]

7. So, your plan is to bypass Congress, how?

[fob]

2. Is there such a radical swing in the number of people that get a flu shot

each year?

I suspect that as our population ages there should be a trend upward but why is it such a mystery of what quantity to make? Just make 100 million doses each year, if you know the volume isn't it easier to control costs? Then you divide the cost of the 100 million doses by the number that ACTUALLY sold the previous year, lets say 50 million and then set the unit cost by this multiplier. That way if you sell 50 million you break even, any thing over 50 million should be sold on a sliding scale starting at an immediate 50% discount. Then they take some of the profit and do a "Get Out the Flu Shot awareness campaign" and eventually they will hit on the optimum amount to make.

They must have the same people who can't figure out each year that the summer driving season is coming and take plants offline which causes a spike in gas prices EVERY FUCKING SUMMER!!

[TahitiNut]

4. It's not only variance in numbers, it's variance in location.

People aren't robots. They don't go to the same places every year or even get the vaccine every year. People age, die, move, and travel. This is the distribution problem. There's still a 'free market' problem.


The problem with a 'free market' approach to providing necessities is that prices (and competition) find an 'equilibrium' where some consumers are guaranteed to be priced out of the market. That's because all production above demand is 100% loss, not only in production costs, but in distribution costs. Profit optimization drives producers to supply slightly less than the demand ... where 'slightly less' is smaller than the minimum level of production of a new producer.

(This is what makes agricultural subsidies, for example, moral and ethical.)

[fob]

8. Sure people move, die, age and travel but are these actions such a

NET change in the demographics of flu-shot getters each year so as to make the previous years distribution unuseable as a guide for this year's?

I would think that flu-shotters are a relatively well-defineable group, especially with the database of info over these many years. That and it seems like every drugstore I've gone by had a flu shot day scheduled (only to be scuttled by the shortage), so the distribution seems pretty well entrenched, active, and with plenty of coverage. In my daily travels, home, commute, work, lunch, commute, home, I encounter no less than 7 places where a flu shot was to be given. Granted this is an urban densely populated area (SF/Bay Area), but that was without even trying to look for a place.

I understand a dynamic customer base and an underdeveloped distribution system can be a problem, I just don't see it in this case.

Production above demand is 100% loss only if you're using straightline unit pricing. They could front load the cost based on prior years knowledge and be covered well below full sell out of the vaccine. And refine this as the years go on. Some years will be under demand, some over, but with a built in "stash", even the heavy demand years won't result in a shortage.

[lfs5]

5. Capitalism is now about ensuring the robber barons don't experience losses

Guess things have changed since I was in school. Back then capitalism was about survival of the fittest...now it's the most politically connected who win! And if the little guy has a better idea--or a better product--they'll buy him out to keep it off the market or turn to their political step'n fetch its to make sure laws and regulations keep him from getting to the marketplace.

[caffefwee]

6. Kerry Campaign Statement on Vice President Cheney Receiving a Flu Shot

Kerry-Edwards campaign spokesperson Phil Singer released the following statement today in response to reports that Vice President Cheney received a flu shot:

“Once again the Bush administration proves that it is the ‘Do As We Say, Not As We Do’ White House. The very week that Secretary Thompson is telling Americans to keep calm, Dick Cheney, John Snow and Bill Frist are getting flu shots. It is unfortunate that the Bush administration failed to do the work necessary to ensure that all Americans, including those most at risk, had been able to get shots as well.” http://blog.johnkerry.com/rapidresponse