Why flu vaccine debacle resonates

[Inland]

One, typical Bush f*up. Foreseeable occurance, easily preventable, but ideology and laziness keep them from acting until too late. Insert problem here.

Two, shows how blind reliance on supposed market forces--that the market will always produce the precisely correct amount of everything--doesn't work in all circumstances.

[trotsky]

1. Well put.

Your second point is very important. The party that points to the miraculous "free market" as the cure for everything needs to be taken to task when it clearly is not.

[Inland]

2. And I am a FAN of free markets

they do work 99.99% of the time. It doesn't mean that you can't step in when they don't--for example, when a cheap, easy to use vaccine will save thousands of lives and billions of dollars.

Market forces do not lead corporations to pick the level of pollution that is best for us.

The market won't cure insider trading.

And on and on.

[CAcyclist]

3. Third:Personal Threat

I think a third reason is that people feel directly imperiled by the government's inaction/incompetence.

One of the causes of China's peoples' increasing grassroots resistance to the Communist government's secrecy is that they were directly threatened by SARS and they suddenly felt like if they didn't change their government, they might die.

It is the FDA's job to ensure the safety of our drugs and vaccines - this factory has a long, long history of problems (see my previous posts) - there is no excuse for them not to have taken steps to make Chiron fix the problems which has owned the factory since 2003 or Powderject, which owned the factory since 2000.

We, the US, are supposed to have the strictest standards in the world - why did it take the British to shut the factory down? Yes, it was located in Britain; that's no excuse.

There also used to be something called an Antitrust law. I think we still have it. We need to pull it out, dust it off and start using it.


The main reason for the decrease in competition in vaccine manufacturing is mergers and acquisitions *not* lawsuits.

Either that, or we need to have the US take over the manufacture of vaccines - huh, that might create jobs, too.

[Inland]

4. Personal Threat-- SARS debacle in China is an interesting point

Suddenly, it isn't just someone else threatened by the government incompetence/inaction/selfserving craven politics.

Those people standing in line for hours and hours are PERSONALLY scared. VERY scared.