Cracked pot.

As the Guardian columnist suggests more people die of hospital superbugs that nothing is being done about.

I mean this is like so fucking Orwellian.

I just plead with all of you on the forum to NOT be suckered into having a flu shot. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Take your C etc.

This is the most infuriating, blatant bunch of bull in the history of the world.

Creating enough vaccine-manufacturing capacity to protect the world’s population is not cheap. The price tag is likely to be at least billion and could rise to billion, according to a WHO estimate (see Bibliography: WHO 2006: Global pandemic influenza action plan). Experts within the vaccine industry say that expecting manufacturers to make the investment asks companies to spend against their own best interest. “In the US market alone by the year 2010 there could be a surplus capacity resulting from ‘building for demand’ for pandemic preparedness but ‘suboptimal utilization’ based on significantly lesser demand for seasonal vaccines,” an engineer and two strategists from the Danish biotech firm NNE PharmaPlan wrote in the industry journal BioPharm International. “In Europe, Asia and the rest of the world, planned future capacities for ‘pandemic preparedness’ would have to address how potential surplus capacities can be effectively used in markets where there is little or no demand for seasonal vaccines” (see Bibliography: Thomas 2007).

The United States has already experienced the aftermath of vaccine companies’ feeling overextended. Between 1998 and 2002, two of the four companies that then supplied seasonal flu vaccine left the market, citing losses on investment and increased regulatory demands. In the 2000-01 and 2003-04 flu seasons, the country experienced significant shortages of flu vaccine, with long lines, panic buying, price-gouging, and subsequent congressional investigations (see Bibliography: GAO 2001, 2004; Grady 2004).

The same scenario could happen again. “The U.S. will have a serious problem if the pandemic doesn’t strike in the next couple of years, because interest will decline and demand will go down again,” said Hedwig Kresse, an associate analyst for infectious diseases with the British-based market analysts Datamonitor. “Governments will have to guarantee a certain sales volume to keep [manufacturers] in the market and to keep these capacities up” (see Bibliography: Kresse 2007).”
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/biz-plan/news

And in today’s Guardian this opinion piece:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/29/swine-flu-mexico-uk-media1

reg,

Don’t argue with me argue with me, argue with the poll Randy Pauls linked to.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_042609.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5385894.stm

I think this is creepy.

You want a flu shot, girl, you get yourself one.

Note this 2006 BBC article:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14458-bacteria-were-the-real-killers-in-1918-flu-pandemic.html

And there is another New Scientist article also discussing the recent resurrection and study of the 1918 pandemic as being lethal because of bacterial pneumonia and anti biotics being the more important weapon.

This is a bullshit engineered panic. The bug got out either on purpose or by accident.

There are several legit older stories on Tamiflu etc not even being effective on the strains its often hauled out for etc etc.

I am addressing the current controversy around vaccine use and the lack of ethics by big pharma.

One has to be vigilant and use common sense. Modern medicine is miraculous and people are unscrupulous if there is a buck to be made. And, uh, the unscrupulousness of the pharmaceutical industry is hardly a fringe idea.

Larry Craig will be grateful to hear it, Marc.

Bullshit – try pushing a “conservative” agenda through Congress, try cutting spending at the same rates knee-jerk, idiot idelological “conservatives” advocate cutting taxes and you’ll find out what crock of “self-defined” shit that is. On issues, which is all – as someone who is conservative in many respectives but a “policy liberal” – I care about, this isn’t a “conservative” country. And it’s getting less so every day as the epic fail of conservative bamboozlement plays out as total and utter failure of policy.

You’re being childish and dishonest if you think that crap can be passed off as a description of contemporary America.

I know I’m totally asking for it here, but I’m pretty sure “eliminating polio and other plagues,” as Anna so artfully puts it, was good. Does that qualify as knee jerk? Is it blather?

In my book the anti-vaccination folk aren’t any more impressive than the creationists. They’ve both rejected science in favor of something they’d prefer. Now, I don’t want to say that all vaccines are necessarily safe and that you shouldn’t be somewhat skeptical, so if that’s all Anna’s voicing then I’ll add an amen, but if she’s saying flatly that vaccines are bad, well, then she’s wrong and believers in science shouldn’t let it slide. Let me add that where creationists are merely misinforming people, anti-vaccine zealots can be public health risk.

Huh? What are you, some kind of socialist? Everyone knows that the world will be saved by free, unfettered Ayn Rand capitalism, and that this can only be achieved by doing everything possible to give the large banks everything they request. Like, duh.

Even though I think that his economic team is going in the wrong direction, by thinking that everything will be solved by giving money to big Wall Street banks.

Independents outnumber Democrats or Republicans – 4/24/09 Poll

See Randy Pauls link above, based on poll taken 4/24/09 – Question 908a. Would you say your views on most political matters are liberal, moderate, or conservative?

Creating enough vaccine-manufacturing capacity to protect the world’s population is not cheap. The price tag is likely to be at least $2 billion and could rise to $9 billion, according to a WHO estimate (see Bibliography: WHO 2006: Global pandemic influenza action plan). Experts within the vaccine industry say that expecting manufacturers to make the investment asks companies to spend against their own best interest. “In the US market alone by the year 2010 there could be a surplus capacity resulting from ‘building for demand’ for pandemic preparedness but ‘suboptimal utilization’ based on significantly lesser demand for seasonal vaccines,” an engineer and two strategists from the Danish biotech firm NNE PharmaPlan wrote in the industry journal BioPharm International. “In Europe, Asia and the rest of the world, planned future capacities for ‘pandemic preparedness’ would have to address how potential surplus capacities can be effectively used in markets where there is little or no demand for seasonal vaccines” (see Bibliography: Thomas 2007).

The United States has already experienced the aftermath of vaccine companies’ feeling overextended. Between 1998 and 2002, two of the four companies that then supplied seasonal flu vaccine left the market, citing losses on investment and increased regulatory demands. In the 2000-01 and 2003-04 flu seasons, the country experienced significant shortages of flu vaccine, with long lines, panic buying, price-gouging, and subsequent congressional investigations (see Bibliography: GAO 2001, 2004; Grady 2004).

The same scenario could happen again. “The U.S. will have a serious problem if the pandemic doesn’t strike in the next couple of years, because interest will decline and demand will go down again,” said Hedwig Kresse, an associate analyst for infectious diseases with the British-based market analysts Datamonitor. “Governments will have to guarantee a certain sales volume to keep [manufacturers] in the market and to keep these capacities up” (see Bibliography: Kresse 2007).”
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/influenza/biz-plan/news

And in today’s Guardian this opinion piece:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/29/swine-flu-mexico-uk-media1