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November 01, 2005

Illin'

The President laid out his bird flu strategery today.

WASHINGTON — President Bush, warning that the United States is at risk in a possible worldwide flu outbreak, said Tuesday he is asking Congress for $1.2 billion for enough vaccine to protect 20 million Americans against the current strain of bird flu.

The president also said the United States must approve liability protection for the makers of lifesaving vaccines.

Uh oh.

Watch for the Kossacks and the Begalas to jump on this. Cronyism! No blood for...er, vaccine...

Bush said no one knows when or where a deadly strain of flu will strike but "at some point we are likely to face another pandemic.''
Five will get you ten Michael Moore has already started plotting out "Fahrenheit 103", his expose of Bush Administration complicity in the epidemic...

Posted by Mitch at November 1, 2005 12:11 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Please excuse me for this brief message;

Closed Circuit to Mitch:

You going to the debate tonight. E-Mail me.

Flash

I now return you to your regularly scheduled babble protecting corporate interests over individual rights. *backing away from the keyboard*

Posted by: Flash at November 1, 2005 11:24 AM

Right. Free enterprise in the United States should not commit to biochemical research in the face of an impending pandemic lest some lawyer be prevented from organizing a class-action lawsuit to exact millions in contingency fees. Better that millions should die than to advance the frontier of medicine.

Just one more example of standing up for the little guy, ay, Flash? What should he do when he gets sick? Call a lawyer?

Posted by: Eracus at November 1, 2005 12:07 PM

Actually, Michael Moore's current project IS a documentary on the pharmaceutical industry.

Posted by: Nordeaster at November 1, 2005 12:28 PM

More specifically the American healthcare system. The evil corporate American healthcare system. Not like the good, fair caring system the English enjoy.

Posted by: Kermit at November 1, 2005 12:43 PM

Hey, don't read too much into my comment. I am all for the protection of corporate interests, the pursuit of technological/pharmaceutical growth, and the discouragement of frivolous lawsuits. But I don't think that capping awards or incorporating blanket liability protection is necessarily the answer.

Let's create specific guidelines for the initiation of lawsuits and incorporate some way of showing fault or neglect on the part of the corporation or individuals within. Let's create stiffer penalties for people who stick fingers in chili bowls to try and fleece easy money from good corporate neighbors.

But if an individual is wronged by money grubbing corporate elites, they need to be nailed, not held to some predetermined cap that the bean counters have already included in their worst case loss scenarios should they choose to rush something that is not ready for the free market. Let's not jeopardize or citizens be creating a race to market of flu vaccines by releasing these companies of common sense practices and protections.

If the President has modified his liability protection packages from the days of his 'controlling frivolous lawsuit' stump speech, I am willing to give it a look. But I suspect it is just a rehash of his prior boiler plate, which put corporate interests ahead of individual rights. And I'm sorry if it makes me sound like a screaming liberal, but when it comes down to those two, the individual comes first.

Flash

Posted by: Flash at November 1, 2005 02:23 PM

>Just one more example of standing up for the >little guy, ay, Flash? What should he do when he >gets sick? Call a lawyer?

Of course not. He should call the International Arabian Horse Association, duh!

Posted by: angryclown at November 1, 2005 03:20 PM

Okay, having worked in Health Care for better than a decade, and that in handling Health Claims, Fraud investigations, and Compliance... a few "tidbits."

The most power and unregulated body of professionals in this country is the AMA. They decide who is in, and who is out. Malpractice is committed by a tiny fraction of Doctors, but they won't take accountability and see to it those who perpetrate the problem are stripped of their license without HUGE numbers of cases. Even still, malpractice accounts for .5% of the inflation in the system (and yes, I'm fully aware of the malpractice rates in some parts of the country). If Tort reform were the answer, Texas would have low malpractice rates, and low inflation, it has neither despite having Tort reform for more than a decade.

The amount of discussion needed for this topic is beyond the space EVEN I am willng to take.

We've seen tremendous inflation in the 60s and 70s because insurance removed the patient's ability to pay from the equation, then later in the 90's because we had dwindling payers and increasing ages.

The bottom line is, we are WAY down the ladder in health care. Complain all you want about lawyers..whatever is my response, they are not the issue, uncovered lives and an aging population is, go do some research, it's not hard to find. Malpractice rates have gone up, but they are in response to unfunded expenses years earlier, meaning the rates are really a reaction to rates that were too low in the late 90's.

Anyway, we are a poor performer in health care on the two bell-weathers, life-expectancy and infant mortality. Some (ignorant) folks claim it's because of our non-homogeneous society, to which the response is, go look at the immigration rates in Germany or England - they are experiencing large influxes of muslim emigres. It's not incorrect to attribute it to disparity in economic strata, but that IS the heart of the issue isn't it? Many folks simply can't afford good preventative care, so they use Emergent care as their primary resource. Emergent care is both a. Expensive and b. Poor indeed at long term analysis and delivery.

Insulating Drug companies from liability only serves to protect drug companies. They spend 14 times more on advertising than research, and if they've failed to research/develop/create flu vaccine, it's been because it doesn't pay as well as Viagra, not because they have fears of liabilities. Further, if they HAVE done so for that reason, then they are fools, as their potential liability as compared to their responsibility to be good corporate citizens is like weighing a feather against a battleship. Letting 50 or 100 million people die because you fear a lawsuit is pretty much the most extreme example of idiocy (and idiotic justification) I think I have heard of.

The President is not wrong to pursue this, he's only late. The hope is that it will be soon enough, and broad enough. I have a co-worker who deals with disaster planning, the buzz on Bird Flu has been out there for 2-3 years, and with an attitude of IF, not When, it will mutate. I'm not sure 20 Million doses is enough, but I am sure that we don't need to protect an industry from a boogey man that really isn't there.

PB

Posted by: pb at November 1, 2005 08:56 PM

"I have a co-worker who deals with disaster planning, the buzz on Bird Flu has been out there for 2-3 years, and with an attitude of IF, not When, it will mutate."
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Which of course will come as great comfort to the 59 people who have already died from avian flu, of the 109 who were infected. Again, PB, you have no idea what you are talking about; you are just making stuff up.

The influenza virus has been studied since the early 1900's, the concern being today that the avian strain has breached the species barrier, that it may be only a matter of time before human-to-human transmission occurs. We already know it kills 100% of the birds it infects, that it has decimated the Asia chicken industry, and has already begun spreading among rodents and pigs.

The 2005 July/August edition of FOREIGN AFFAIRS is replete with articles discussing what has already happened, not IF it will happen. You might spend some time reading it. Here are some excerpts:

"Influenza viruses contain eight genes, composed of RNA and packaged loosely in protective proteins. Like most RNA viruses, influenza reproduces sloppily: its genes readily fall apart, and it can absorb different genetic material and get mixed up in a process called reassortment. When influenza successfully infects a new species -- say, pigs -- it can reassort, and may switch from being an avian virus to a mammalian one. When that occurs, a human epidemic can result. The transmission cycles and the constant evolution are key to influenza's continued survival, for were it to remain identical year after year, most animals would develop immunity, and the flu would die out. This changing form explains why influenza is a seasonal disease. Vaccines made one year are generally useless the following...."

"The production of influenza vaccines holds particular drawbacks for companies. Flu vaccines must be made rapidly, increasing the risk of contamination or other errors. Because of the seasonal nature of the flu, a new batch of influenza vaccines must be produced each year. Should sales in a given year prove disappointing, flu vaccines cannot be stockpiled for sale in a subsequent season because by then the viruses will have evolved. In addition, the manufacturing process of flu vaccines is uniquely complex: pharmaceutical companies must grow viral samples on live chicken eggs, which must be reared under rigorous hygienic conditions. Research is under way on reverse genetics and cellular-level production techniques that might prove cheaper, faster, and less contamination-prone than using eggs, but for the foreseeable future manufacturers are stuck with the current laborious method. After cultivation, samples of the viruses must be harvested, the H and N characteristics must be shown to produce antibodies in test animals and human volunteers, and tests must prove that the vaccine is not contaminated. Only then can mass production commence."

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/background/pandemic/

Posted by: Eracus at November 2, 2005 01:01 PM

Let's create specific guidelines for the initiation of lawsuits and incorporate some way of showing fault or neglect on the part of the corporation or individuals within.
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Uh.... you mean like tort reform? Now what kind of screaming liberal would suggest a thing like that?

Posted by: Eracus at November 2, 2005 08:29 PM
hi