Wondering about the avian flu?


If you are wondering why the U.S. with all it's technology faces a potential disaster, look no further than the government
The Wall Street Journal has a great article today that helps explain why there are so few vaccine manufacturers in the United States.

Whatever the risk, some good will come out of this public alarm if we use it as an opportunity to understand why the U.S. is now so poorly armed to cope with a deadly flu outbreak. The reason is that our political class has spent the past 30 years driving the vaccine industry out of business with its own virus of over-regulation, price controls, litigation and intellectual-property abuse.

The U.S. today has only three large vaccine makers--down from 37 in the 1960s. This is the reason that, as recently as 2001, there was a shortage of eight of 11 critical childhood vaccines. It is also the reason the U.S. fell drastically short of flu vaccine a year ago, after a shut-down of one of two major flu-vaccine makers. And it is the reason only one company, Switzerland's Roche, is being counted on for a drug that would potentially protect against bird flu.

The same thing happened in 2001 and no one paid attention.

This is part of a pattern that often occurs in long term relationships between government and business. Either government grants special privileges and protections to existing businesses making it much harder for others to compete, or government regulation and taxation raises the stakes so high that only a few businesses with high cash flow can afford to take the risks that support a successful enterprise.

Look for the businesses that are highly regulated and taxed to be demonized by both the government and the culture.

The longer the relationship, the less competition on the open market.

Any way you shake it, you lose.

One of the sure-fire flags that shows government interference in the free market is prolonged shortages. The Soviet Union was proof of this. In the U.S., it has been gold in the 1920s, oil in the 1970s, California electricity starting in the 1990s, medical care since the late 1960s, and dozens of other things.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sat - October 22, 2005 at 04:59 AM  Tag


 ◊  ◊   ◊  ◊ 

Random selections from NeoWayland's library


Pagan Vigil "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black or white"
© 2005 - 2009 All Rights Reserved