Slate has a terrifying article on the state of the public health system, and antiviral and antibiotic drug development. It is basically a review of the U.S. Institute of Medicine's report, Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response. The conclusion: we have been gutting our public health infrastructure for years, and have not provided the drug companies with incentives to develop antibiotics and antiviral medicines. As a result, we are primed for a worldwide pandemic.
Does anyone think that $762 billion dollar tax cuts are going to help? I guess it will be like terrorism - aside from a few professionals and a few nuts, nobody will pay attention until we have a massive epidemic, and then we will probably do the wrong things, as the biggest pigs push their way to the troughs.
I guess my reading tonight hasn't made me very optimistic. Sorry.
Posted by Geodog at March 22, 2003 03:17 AM | TrackBackMy apologies, but my web hoster has turned off commenting, due to a flood of obscene spam bringing the server to its knees. I hope to have this weblog transitioned over to Wordpress in the near future, so that I can have commenting up and working again. Until then, please feel free to send me your comments via my email contact form.. Please ignore everything below this comment.