Next up on the election issues series is Health Care, which seems to be on everybody's minds these days with the flu shot shortage. I find myself wondering why this shortage has been considered a surprise. It's long been known that there aren't enough sources for flu vaccine, basically the USA relies on only two companies, Chiron (of California) and Aventis (of France), for our supply of flu vaccine. Health experts have been warning for a long time that this makes the supply somewhat fragile. One company goes offline and you have no backup sources. It was really only a matter of time before such a thing happened. Chiron's flu vaccines are manufactured at a plant in Liverpool. Back in August vaccine coming from this plant was discovered to be contaminated with bacteria and the British government shut the plant down.

Why weren't we prepared? And further, this recent problem which resulted in one of the sources being shut down was widely known in the UK long before our government here decided to call our attention to it. Why is that?

The Free Market and Health Care

Part of the problem is that there really aren't a lot of sources for flu vaccine in the first place. The reason for that is simple, flu vaccine is not really a money maker. Generally it's one dose per year for each recipient. Further, the cocktail that must be custom brewed each year, tailored to that year's specific strains of influenza, takes 6 to 8 months to process into vaccines. Flu vaccine simply doesn't have the high profit margin that drugs like Lipitor do. In fact this is a problem that faces all vaccine makers. In the 1970's there were over two dozen manufacturers of vaccines. Today there are five, largely due to the economics of vaccine production. Which highlights what I think is the underlying problem with health care today.

The free market is not a very good model for promoting health and health care. Healthcare is by its nature, altruistic. The free market is anything but. The idea that a pharmaceutical firm which produces a harmful drug will respond to the market reaction is ludicrous. The person who takes the drug and dies from it is not going to "take his money elsewhere". If people have to die and suffer, you're taking capitalism to extremes.

In a government sponsored healthcare system, there is no reason for a vaccine shortage because the manufacturer need not be subject to market forces. I know, I know, all the libertarians and conservatives quake in their shoes at the thought of big government or of their money going to anyone other than themselves. But a society that does not look after its sick is a sick society. We are going to pay, one way or another. When the guy who can't afford insurance finally goes to the emergency room, his treatment will cost a fortune and we all will pay. Isn't it better to make healthcare available to him so that his problem is dealt with before it becomes serious? When it is less expensive? Ounce of prevention, pound of cure, and all that?

Either way you are going to pay. Why not do the right thing and save yourself some money at the same time?

Back in the 90's when the markets were doing well, the Clinton administration tried to bring healthcare to every man, woman, and child in America. Immediately the Republicans launched a massive scare campaign with ads telling people that the government was going to grow huge, suck up all their money, and give them low quality healthcare. It was all nonsense of course. There are many countries in the world with government sponsored healthcare which works well and is high quality. The real problem was that in a government run system the big drug/insurance companies were likely to lose out, as the government would be the major buyer and would insist on a fair price. So these companies bought themselves some politicians, and got it killed.

And now instead of government sponsored healthcare, we've got healthcare sponsored government, which puts the average Joe at a serious disadvantage.

Plan Ahead... Dumbass

As I mentioned earlier, this problem has been known of since August. There really should have been clear warnings earlier than now.

According to one report I read Great Britain relies on five different suppliers of flu vaccines. Further, the flu vaccine shortage isn't anywhere near as severe in Europe as it is here. Some scientists are very worried that an outbreak of avian flu will lead to a flu pandemic like the one that killed approximately 675,000 Americans in 1918, mostly those between the ages of 20 and 40.

We need to plan ahead. Our government is scrambling to find more flu vaccine now (Canadian drugs aren't so terrifying all the sudden) but nothing on the order of what we need (about 60 million doses) is available. Even if a manufacturer had the capacity to fill such an order, we'd have to wait 6 months for them to brew it. Our government dropped the ball here.

Sub-Issue: Canadian Drugs

ReclaimDemocracy.org has a great article on the safety of Canadian drugs, which are generally cheaper than drugs sold here in America. A lot of fear has been peddled by our politicians about drugs from Canada, and this is not surprising... many US politicians rely heavily on US drug manufacturers for campaign donations. Needless to say, these manufacturers of pharmaceuticals do not wish to compete with lower-priced medications.

From Danger from Importing Canadian Drugs? FDA Has No Evidence to Support Claim:

...Health Canada, which regulates Canada's prescription industry, "does not have any information that would indicate that any Americans have become ill or have died as a result of taking prescription medications purchased from Canada," said Jirina Vlk, a spokeswoman for Health Canada.

That doesn't mean there are no such cases, nor does it mean that all drugs from Canada are safe. But the absence of documented harm strongly suggests that medications obtained from licensed Canadian pharmacies are safe, and raises questions about whether the FDA may be overstating the risk of buying less expensive Canadian drugs.

FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan, in a speech last week in Canada before a group of drug information experts, said the agency had found "thousands of examples of unapproved and potentially unsafe medicines" coming into the United States from "many countries, including from Canada."

In a subsequent news conference in Ottawa, McClellan was more specific, according to news reports, saying there were "lots of examples of unsafe drugs coming into the United States from Canada."

A recent report by the Congressional Research Service - the Library of Congress expert that Congress turns to for objective information - supports the safety of drugs from Canada. It found that medications manufactured and distributed in Canada meet or surpass quality control guidelines set by the FDA.

Concern that the FDA may be misleading consumers has hurt its credibility among some Capitol Hill lawmakers, who say the agency is carrying water for the powerful drug industry...

Definitely worth a read.