The Swine Flu Screwup
How "undue optimism" created the vaccine shortage.
This story first appeared at the TomDispatch website.To listen to the TomDispatch audio interview with Ehrenreich that accompanies this piece, click here.
If you can't find any swine flu vaccine for your kids, it won't be for a lack of positive thinking. In fact, the whole flu snafu is being blamed on "undue optimism" on the part of both the Obama administration and Big Pharma.
Optimism is supposed to be good for our health. According to the academic "positive psychologists," as well as legions of unlicensed life coaches and inspirational speakers, optimism wards off common illnesses, contributes to recovery from cancer, and extends longevity. To its promoters, optimism is practically a miracle vaccine, so essential that we need to start inoculating Americans with it in the public schools—in the form of "optimism training."
But optimism turns out to be less than salubrious when it comes to public health. In July, the federal government promised to have 160 million doses of H1N1 vaccine ready for distribution by the end of October. Instead, only 28 million doses are now ready to go, and optimism is the obvious culprit. "Road to Flu Vaccine Shortfall, Paved With Undue Optimism," was the headline of a front page article in the October 26th New York Times. In the conventional spin, the vaccine shortage is now "threatening to undermine public confidence in government." If the federal government couldn't get this right, the pundits are already asking, how can we trust it with health reform?
But let's stop a minute and also ask: Who really screwed up here—the government or private pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and three others that had agreed to manufacture and deliver the vaccine by late fall? Last spring and summer, those companies gleefully gobbled up $2 billion worth of government contracts for vaccine production, promising to have every American, or at least every American child and pregnant woman, supplied with vaccine before trick-or-treating season began.
According to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the government was misled by these companies, which failed to report manufacturing delays as they arose. Her department, she says, was "relying on the manufacturers to give us their numbers, and as soon as we got numbers we put them out to the public. It does appear now that those numbers were overly rosy."
If, in fact, there's a political parable here, it's about Big Government's sweetly trusting reliance on Big Business to safeguard the public health: Let the private insurance companies manage health financing; let profit-making hospital chains deliver health care; let Big Pharma provide safe and affordable medications. As it happens, though, all these entities have a priority that regularly overrides the public's health, and that is, of course, profit—which has led insurance companies to function as "death panels," excluding those who might ever need care, and for-profit hospitals to turn away the indigent, the pregnant, and the uninsured.
As for Big Pharma, the truth is that they're just not all that into vaccines, traditionally preferring to manufacture drugs for such plagues as erectile dysfunction, social anxiety, and restless leg syndrome. Vaccines can be tricky and less than maximally profitable to manufacture. They go out of style with every microbial mutation, and usually it's the government, rather than cunning direct-to-consumer commercials, that determines who gets them. So it should have been no surprise that Big Pharma approached the H1N1 problem ploddingly, using a 50-year old technology involving the production of the virus in chicken eggs, a method long since abandoned by China and the European Union.
Chicken eggs are fine for omelets, but they have quickly proved to be a poor growth medium for the viral "seed" strain used to make H1N1 vaccine. There are alternative "cell culture" methods that could produce the vaccine much faster, but in complete defiance of the conventional wisdom that private enterprise is always more innovative and resourceful than government, Big Pharma did not demand that they be made available for this year's swine flu epidemic. Just for the record, those alternative methods have been developed with government funding, which is also the source of almost all our basic knowledge of viruses.
So, thanks to the drug companies, optimism has been about as effective in warding off H1N1 as amulets or fairy dust. Both the government and Big Pharma were indeed overly optimistic about the latter's ability to supply the vaccine, leaving those of us who are involved in the care of small children with little to rely on but hope—hope that the epidemic will fade out on its own, hope that our loved ones have the luck to survive it.
And contrary to the claims of the positive psychologists, optimism itself is neither an elixir, nor a life-saving vaccine. Recent studies show that optimism—or positive feelings—do not affect recovery from a variety of cancers, including those of the breast, lungs, neck, and throat. Furthermore, the evidence that optimism prolongs life has turned out to be shaky at best: one study of nuns frequently cited as proof positive of optimism's healthful effects turned out, in fact, only to show that nuns who wrote more eloquently about their vows in their early twenties tended to outlive those whose written statements were clunkier.
Are we ready to abandon faith-based medicine of both the individual and public health variety? Faith in private enterprise and the market has now left us open to a swine flu epidemic; faith alone—in the form of optimism or hope—does not kill viruses or cancer cells. On the public health front, we need to socialize vaccine manufacture as well as its distribution. Then, if the supply falls short, we can always impeach the president. On the individual front, there's always soap and water.
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Barbara, I recently read an
Barbara,
I recently read an article in the Scientific American, "Swine Flu Vaccine -- Too Little, Too Late". This article also focused on the outdated methods used in the United States to produce vaccines. It also noted, however, that "the U.S. does not permit use of the new adjuvants in vaccines, except in emergencies declared by the Food and Drug Administration."
If this is true, it would seem that the government's interference in the form of regulation and more importantly, its inability to keep up to speed on medical advancements and change regulations has also played a significant role in this mess.
Did this not come up in your research?
Thank you,
James
Some optimism (with evidence).
How about this for optimism?
You and your children don't actually need (nor should you seek) the vaccine to which your referring (for the overblown H1N1 panic-demic)...
http://swineflu.mercola.com/sites/swineflu/home.aspx
http://www.nvic.org/vaccines-and-diseases/h1n1-swine-flu.aspx
THESE VACCINES CAN KILL
The adjuvants used in many vaccines raise the immune system. In some cases the immune system turns on itself. This process can't be reversed. It has resulted in the "Gulf War Syndrome" lupus and a number of other crippling and sometines fatal conditions. I would not take the vaccine under any circumstances.
I don't think there's much
I don't think there's much difference. I've worked for both the government and evil corporations over the years, and find they're prone to chronic clusterfucks because they're all run by exactly the same kinds of mindless bureaucrats.
Wait, Back Up
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My confidence in the government was undermined when they never addressed the root cause of swine flu's emergence in the first place. There was strong evidence that ground zero for the strain may very well have originated in a hog factory farm (CAFO) in La Gloria, Mexico, half-owned by Smithfield. Why is there no media attention on the low environmental standards allowed by NAFTA to raise 1 million hogs per year in appallingly cramped conditions?
http://www.ecohearth.com/eco-blogs/small-earth/524-swine-flu-and-cafos-m...
You lost me with 'Big Pharma'
As soon as you truck out a term like that you betray an agenda, and a particularly small way of thinking.
Write like an adult, Ms. Ehrenreich. Your adult, intelligent readers will appreciate it.
Warren - This adult,
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Warren - This adult, intelligent reader would not have used the term Big Pharma, but please add to that list of demanded qualities a modicum of class to withhold from pointless schoolmarmish exhibitionism.
I'll use actual company names.
This is a quick video about Baxter's admittance that they failed to irradiate the deadly and otherwise poorly communicable avian flu virus, which was incomprehensibly included with this year's standard flu vaccine which they controlled the contract to provide.
We need to have the WHO go back to their previous definition of a pandemic to include actual mortality rates and to have flu cases verified medically instead of relying on hotline call numbers to provide inaccurate and unverifiable data.
Additionally we need to make pharmaceutical providers legally liable for gross negligence as a means of preventing the loss of quality assurance for their product. The FDA can do nothing if they no longer have legal recourse against unsanctioned products, especially vaccines.
If it were not for the quick whistle blowing by an independent lab researcher that all test animals in contact with the vaccine mysteriously died ahead of human deliveries, we would have had the pandemic symptoms appear in six major European countries:
Be strong, Warren. It's a nun.
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Swine Flu Screw up
I understand this article and its goal....and although what it says may be correct it does not address the real issue.
Vaccines themselves are very bad for our health....and the government has been scaring people into thinking they need this vaccine.........so it is the government who
made the original mistake.............And why has the government scared the people??? because really the government supports the pharmaceuticals.........
In addition the swine flu is not as dangerous as our governtment has
made us believe...........is the government not supporting the big businesses that
make these vaccines???
There is proof now that elderly people who have taken flu vaccines for five years are at greater risk for dementia........This is because there is mercury and aluminum in these vaccines........
This article is superfluous to the real meaning of what is happening......That the
government has scared people into thinking they need a vaccine to begin with and with this terror tactic has supported the pharmaceuticals......so now it must
suffer the consequences.....
The Swine Flu is not any more dangerous that any of the other flus that appear every year......
And before the Pharmaceutical companies could not produce the quantity of the vaccine, the government was taking away the right of medical workers to decide
whether or not they want to take this vaccine.......
THE GOVERNMENT WAS TAKING AWAY OUR RIGHTS...........so to me it is a good
thing that this vaccine could not be produced in such quantity.......
This article makes this administration sound innocent.........It is as corrupt as any
other administration that we have had.........the system is corrupt and no one
address that........maybe if corruption and greed were addressed many problems
would be solved without band aide tactics.
Amazing how fast an H1N1
Amazing how fast an H1N1 'vaccine' was 'discovered,' don't ya think? And, yet, the 'common cold' still so f**king elusive..." Not really, the H1N1 swine flu is one particular strain of influenza while there are literally hundreds of rhinoviruses that cause the common cold. The H1N1 vaccine didn't need to be discovered but merely made.
Lean Muscle X
Call your doctor and ask them what is the best thing to do. Until then, that person should be kept confined. Stay away from there germs and keep your area clean & clear from them. Wash your hands. You should be OK. Best you not cough or sneeze on any one, and keep to yourself for a week after theres goes away.Lean Muscle X
Hello my name is Yumi
Hello my name is Yumi WAN.
my brother and I STOLE THE DIARY AND WORK NOTES OF A BIO CHEMIST.
We used the formulas in the diary and have been injecting people and animals with diseases.
mY FATHER WAS AWAY DIRECTING A MOVIE AT THE TIME.
You all know him as Bruce Lee. HIs wife Brenda moved to Australia and have plastic surgery on her face.
We own Yuen wing restaurant ans have been giving the clients the swine flu in the food.
THIS IS WHAT WE DID.
We froze the birds with the asian bird flu thinking that it would kill the virus and then we sold the carcuses to the DON meat factory this is what caused the swine flu.
Our grandfather was the one who started the cult OHM SHEN REIKIO he is not in prison. He is living in Broome western australia in a house in cocnut wells or other wiseknown as South Korea.
Suartu was the one who helped him escape.
They told the asian people that they were being poisoned by the americans and the brittish.
Little did they know that it was because the recycled the old metal from the previous generation into saucepans that they should have sent oberseas to the AMERICANS.
The asians who carried out this work were acting on impulses created by a war i the fifteenth century.
THEY NEED TO LEARN THAT THEY CANNOTKEEP THE METAL INSIDE AND THAT METAL THAT GETS METLED DOWN NEEDS TO GO THROUGHA FOUR STEP PROCESS. ALLOWING THE METAL TO CCOL IN FOUR STAGES AND THEN REMELTING IT OVER FUVE TIME EACH TIME THROWING AWAY THE SLAG THAT FLOTS OIN THE TOP AND ON THE BOOTIM OF THE SMELTER.
But then that is greed for you isnt it.
ABBA "Money money money"
But then all of this was caused by the actor that was in Rogue ASSASSIN The one who cut jet li's arm.
FUNNY HOW YOU CANT TRUST YOUR OWN KIDS WHEN YOU ARE AWAY.
It is a bad idea to make any movies before you have had children as they tend to have the personalities of the characted that you played.
BUT THEN THIS IS THE PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO DESWTROY ANOTHER CULTURE AND TAKE OVER THEIR COUNTRY ISNT IT.
When are people going to kearn there is no point in trying to wipe other cultures and aces off of the planet as WE ALL HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY ON THIS EARTH.
SO, DOES THIS MEAN THAT WE SHOULD BAN ACTING - NO IT DOESNT. We just learned to use the condom.
CHAO
Stop mixing generatings when using psychics it has a very bad effect on the past !!!!!!!!!!!!!
OH AND THERE IS ALSO NO POINT IN TRYING TO STOP THE MOVIE INDUSTRY FROM BUILDING SETS. jUST MAKE SURE THAT THEY ARE ALL BUILT BY PROPER CONTRACTORS AND NOT SOME HACK who is going to sell them off for profit after the movie has been made.
You need to make sure that the sewers and the drains are working propery and have been installed. A MOVIE SET CAN BE USED AS A VILLAGE AFTERWARDS AND IT MAKES SENSE TO KEEP ON MOVING WITH THE SEASONS AS THIS IS GOING TO HAVE A REAL EFFEC ON GLOBAL WARMING IN THE FUTURE.
I ALWAYS WONDERED WHY CERTAIN MOVIES TOOK TWENTY YEARS OR SO to complete.
Oh want some gossip. Yumi
Oh want some gossip.
Yumi and Gok Wan are married and are part of a cult thsat drinks human blood stolen from the hospital by a nurse who is none other than victor changs daughter.
SHALL WE KEEP GOING ??
They are friend with the echolls boy whochnaged his name to justin cowdry and they moved to sydney and have a home in Broome with the grandfather of ohm shen reikio.
Their grandmother was the one who stole the queen of englans jewelly they also took a tiara owned by the romanov family.
I WONDER IF IT IS BECAUSE THEY ALL EAT RAT MEAT ??
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