Vaccine manufacturers big winners in fight for government cash
Given that vaccines are a real public health issue, a straight up and right proper public good, I would damn well hope that the major recipients of public health spending were those who manufacture vaccines.
Wouldn’t you?
3 responses so far ↓
1 The Remittance Man // Nov 19, 2010 at 12:26 pm
Well, it does depend upon what the money will be spent. All those doses of vaccine came in really useful during the Great Piggie Flu Epedemic of 08, didn’t they.
2 Chuckles // Nov 19, 2010 at 1:58 pm
You’re too quick for me RM, just what I was going to say. The big money spinners are the bogus flu scare of the week, anti-virals and the like.
3 Tracy W // Nov 19, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Well that’s the problem with risky situations – if the government takes precautionary action and it doesn’t happen, they’re open to accusations of wasting money, if they don’t take action and it does happen, the media comes down on them like a ton of bricks for not taking action.
That said, it is of course entirely possible that the government wasted a lot of money about swine-flu as a response to fearmongering, governments waste money often enough. My point is only that it’s also entirely possible that, given our inherent ignorance of the future, it spent too little money on precautionary measures but we got lucky anyway. I am more willing to pay for waste in government spending on responding to public health risks than I am on most things the government wastes money on.
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