WP: Bioterrorism Response Hampered by Problem of Profit

[Pirate Smile]

Bioterrorism Response Hampered by Problem of Profit

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 7, 2005; Page A05

In 2000, the Pentagon's Defense Science Board concluded that to successfully respond to a bioterrorist attack, the United States would need 57 specific drugs, diagnostic tools and vaccines. At the time, only one was available.

Five years later, officials say that number has increased to two.

Despite the promises of the drug industry after the 2001 anthrax attacks, and last year's passage of the $5.6 billion Project BioShield bill designed to speed development of new products, officials say the nation is scarcely any better protected than it was in 2000.

Now, in a renewed effort to encourage the drug industry to develop and produce the needed countermeasures, senators are aggressively promoting legislation that would grant companies unprecedented enticements to work on meeting the bioterrorism defense needs on the classified list.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/06/AR2005080601164.html

But I thought Capitalism solved all problems?

Do you mean some problems need Government involved because there isn't enough of a financial incentive to get for-profit companies to do things society needs to have done? Whaaaaaaat! :wow:


:eyes:

[oscar111]

1. Why such shortages exist, and solution:

Theory of all this is in my answer to the new vaccine for bird flu, and an expected shortage of it.

snip<<<
my general fix for these

SHORTAGE

problems {"given the inability of the antiviral industry to produce"}----
is to nationalize the factories and ignore any patent barriers.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++
-1 --in this birdflu vaccine case, no patent problem.
-2 --in this birdflu case, not sure why the industry cant produce enough. Might just be an unavoidable scale-up problem.

#########################
But in related issues, like Tamiflu antiviral pills and normal flushots.... the problem is that it is not profitable to industry to stockpile a lot and risk not selling it all.

=====================
MAJOR THEORY - MEMORIZE THIS:
Nationalized factories avoid that problem. They can absorb $-loss at the factory while effecting vast savings in something called "human death", ... which is not on these current factory's balance sheets.

Current factories' dollar-based balance sheets ignore such deaths out in society. The general theory-term used ...is

"Social Cost",

...meaning - Cost To Society, not the factory.

A parallel case is cancer deaths from pollution , due to a factory's smoke. Never shows up on the factory balance sheet.. the cancer deaths are "Social Cost".

GOP pretends Social Costs dont exist.

Tamiflu pills.. a clear case of the need to nationalize the factory and ignore the patent.
Later, one might pay the Roche owner a fee for the patent avoidance. But for now, millions of lives hinge on getting the product out there.