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2004-07-15 Home Front: WoT

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Posted by Steve White 2004-07-15 12:32:32 AM|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 ``What's the incentive today to develop a vaccine for Ebola or for the plague when there is no real market for such a vaccine in this country?''

How about people dying ass%^le.Ebola is about the nastiest disease on the planet,it turns the body into blody goo.Something like 98% of those who get will die.

Posted by raptor 2004-07-15 8:05:12 AM|| 2004-07-15 8:05:12 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Um Raptor. Tauzin is FOR the bill. He asks a reasonable question in that there is NO economic motive for private business to develop these vaccines. "People dying" only cuts it if you're a charitable organization. No profit and high liability risks make for a strong disincentive, no?

Posted by Alan 2004-07-15 9:29:58 AM|| 2004-07-15 9:29:58 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 AP's right--The bill is to provide "financial guarantees" so such companies will investigate developing an antidote that is not a profitable endeavor they would attempt on their own.

Posted by Dar 2004-07-15 9:40:30 AM|| 2004-07-15 9:40:30 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 So what your saying,Alan,is that if the water supply of an office complex becomes cotaniminated with Ebola,then those people can just die because there is no profit in curing them.

Posted by raptor 2004-07-15 9:48:19 AM|| 2004-07-15 9:48:19 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 Oops--meant "Alan", not "AP" above.

raptor--How many Ebola outbreaks have there been in the US? What CEO in his right mind is going to direct his pharmaceutical company to invest MILLIONS of dollars in R&D to develop an antidote for something that, to date, has not been needed? It does not make fiscal sense!

Posted by Dar 2004-07-15 10:12:00 AM|| 2004-07-15 10:12:00 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 Not including Outbreak. (Helluva movie to see on a plane...)

Posted by eLarson 2004-07-15 11:12:42 AM|| 2004-07-15 11:12:42 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 We have Hemoragic fever(a variant of Ebola),and Bubonic plague in parts of Northern Arizona.I am not saying that pharmacutical companys break themselves or stock pile millions of doses of vacine.But to ignore the possability of an attack using Ebola(or one of the variants)in the name of profit is stupid if not criminal.They should at least have the ability to ramp-up production quickly.To my mind this is not much different than chargeing Americans 3 or 4 tmies the price for the same medicine that can be baught in Canada.

Posted by raptor 2004-07-15 11:15:23 AM|| 2004-07-15 11:15:23 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 raptor,
If I'm investing my money in a company I'm looking for a good return. In drug companies the money is in cures for baldness, obesity, and impotance. Serious diseases don't pay. Right now there are activists campaigning to strip patents from AIDS drugs so that they manufacture them cheaply to give to victims in poor countries. It's a noble sentiment. But if you steal the results of research from a drug company you won't find many responsible managers proposing to spend more money on AIDS research.

Imagine that you are a stock holder and the president of the company announces, "We're going to spend millions on Ebola research and if we get lucky and come up with a cure we're going to give the drug away." If you're paying attention you are either voting to replace that president or selling your stock and investing in something with a return.

Posted by Formerly Dan 2004-07-15 11:16:33 AM|| 2004-07-15 11:16:33 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 Formerly Dan :)
You will admit of course that a for profit drug company is at the very heart of the matter wrong.

It would be like making money selling caskets or somesuch. It would be like cutting down a 120 year old ash to make a Louisville Slugger. It would be like breaking the bonds on million year old carbon atoms to make a Gremlin!

Posted by Shipman 2004-07-15 11:27:30 AM|| 2004-07-15 11:27:30 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 Ok"Profit is King"and if 100,000 people die because terrorist contaminate a small towns water supply"Oh well such is the cost of doing buisness".

Posted by raptor 2004-07-15 11:32:44 AM|| 2004-07-15 11:32:44 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 If there is no ebola vaccine, thank a lawyer and then the free-drugs advocates, the ones who do not want to deal with the underlying hygenic issues associated with an AIDS 'epidemic', but who want corporations give away their hard earned money to deal with AIDS.

Posted by badanov 2004-07-15 12:15:12 PM|| [http://www.rkka.org] 2004-07-15 12:15:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Shipman,
I don't agree that it is wrong at all. Human advancement has been driven by a basic desire to acquire stuff, work less, and impress the opposite sex. Money is the medium to do that and it is the perfect media for it. There are companies that make a lot of money selling caskets, a buddy works for one. Are you saying that drugs should be given to anyone who needs them for free? Why should I work for a company that won't make enough money to bring me my three desires (see above)? In your model the essential industries are somehow controlled by the public so that they are non-profit. This would give the result we see now. The smart, ambitious, clever people go into for profit industries and the less intelligent, lazy, and slower witted go into the protected industries or government. These public industries will not be able to develop or produce the products that you think are essential and you will find yourself driven to confiscate intellectual property from the free industries, driving them from that market. Whenever you think of "public" anything substitute rest room for that thing. Then you will see what your likely result is, dirty, neglected and inadaquate.

Posted by Formerly Dan 2004-07-15 12:18:39 PM|| 2004-07-15 12:18:39 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 "You will admit of course that a for profit drug company is at the very heart of the matter wrong."

Let's put it this way. There is no economic incentive for a company to develop an Ebola vaccine. I don't think that is disputed. Should they do it because of moral obligation? No, no more than you should quit your job and help homeless or build schools in Tanzania. Probably less so, because you answer only to yourself, whereas a company bears a responsibility toward shrareholders. It is a societal good, therefore a public incentive is needed.

Posted by Anonymous5752 2004-07-15 12:23:09 PM|| 2004-07-15 12:23:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 raptor--I can't believe you expect a private enterprise to spend a bunch of money developing something for which they will never see a return on investment. That's why government is stepping in. Do you expect the business and its employees to survive on principle and good will alone?

Posted by Dar 2004-07-15 12:43:48 PM|| 2004-07-15 12:43:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Raptor - that's what the CDC and Army disease research is for. Companies exist to make money. If it's by providing beneficial drugs, great

Posted by Frank G 2004-07-15 12:49:12 PM|| 2004-07-15 12:49:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Raptor, I don't think that Ebola can be transmitted in the water supply. However, if it can and can therefore be used as a terror weapon (again, weaponizing bio agents like this is no small trick) then therein lies the financial incentive to produce a vaccine.

There is a great deal of government-sposored research that takes place in the US and elsewhere. That could be one route to take if this is indeed a widespread potential threat. As it stands now, while Ebola is terrible, it affects only a small number of people in occasional outbreaks. I would say that there are bigger medical issues to deal with that will positively affect far more people.

Formerly Dan, the biggest selling prescription drug in the US is Lipitor and the biggest selling class of drugs is statins. These are used to reduce cholesterol and therefore the incicence of heart attacks. While the drugs may seem expensive, they are cheap compared to a 1 week hospital stay with surgery.

Posted by remote man 2004-07-15 12:55:55 PM|| 2004-07-15 12:55:55 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 Frank G - The land-grant, research universities, too.

Posted by eLarson 2004-07-15 1:00:14 PM|| 2004-07-15 1:00:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 Formerly Dan, the biggest selling prescription drug in the US is Lipitor and the biggest selling class of drugs is statins. These are used to reduce cholesterol and therefore the incicence of heart attacks. While the drugs may seem expensive, they are cheap compared to a 1 week hospital stay with surgery.

That is true but that just means that raptor and his friends will decide that Lipitor is an entitlement too. Then there is no money in that either.

Stick with the Barbie drugs, those that help appearance and libido. People will pay anything for those.

Posted by Formerly Dan 2004-07-15 1:14:38 PM|| 2004-07-15 1:14:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#19 It is not unreasonalble to expect a profit for your investment. Doing the research for no profit is the govt.'s game and the majority of drug break throughs in the last 50 years have been facilitated by govt research.

The problem with access to health care is not the drug compainies but the many layers of the medical field , and the lawyers in between. Take out the obscene malpractice settlements and the insurance because of these settlements then health care would be much lower.

Not that that all drug companies are perfect but you cannot blame them for wanting a return.

#10 Ok"Profit is King"and if 100,000 people die because terrorist contaminate a small towns water supply"Oh well such is the cost of doing buisness".
the last time I heard it is the govt's job to provide security and not drug companies.

Posted by Dan 2004-07-15 1:48:07 PM|| 2004-07-15 1:48:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#20 Ebola is so virulent, it's unlikely to make a good bioweapon. The infected die too fast, and the disease spread burns itself out.

Smallpox, now....

Posted by mojo 2004-07-15 2:19:00 PM|| 2004-07-15 2:19:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#21 Formerly Dan :)
You will admit that I deserved a pony back in 1967 won't you? Life turned unfair that year and it still smarts. And let's talk about insurance, I mean everyone needs free medical care, that's a given but what about car insurance? I am sick unto death of paying thru the nose to insure my male chilluns, I need a subsidy and a big one pronto. That ole SunBeam Tiger can't be all that dangerous.

Posted by Shipman 2004-07-15 3:55:40 PM|| 2004-07-15 3:55:40 PM|| Front Page Top

#22 Shipman,
I agree, you were probably screwed out of your pony.

Posted by Formerly Dan 2004-07-15 7:17:38 PM|| 2004-07-15 7:17:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#23 LOL FD. I always suspected that was the case.

Posted by Shipman 2004-07-15 8:29:18 PM|| 2004-07-15 8:29:18 PM|| Front Page Top

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