Looks like that 'European-style healthcare system' is going to kick (and then save) our ass again.

[Shagbark Hickory]

So much for the "innovation" excuse.

In a drive to inoculate people against swine flu before winter, many European governments say they will fast-track the testing of a new flu vaccine, arousing concern among some experts about safety issues and proper vaccine doses.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090726/ap_on_he_me/eu_med_swine_flu_vaccine_fast_track

Oh but how can they test anything with all the lines and rationing?

They are going to be the first ones to come up with a pig flu vaccine. World leaders in medicine, those Europeans. Thankfully it will save our butts when the pandemic spreads to North America.

[robinlynne]

1. unless tamiflu comes up with a major ad campaign... bets?

[Shagbark Hickory]

3. I don't think they'll need to advertise.

[MADem]

2. They're not doing open heart surgery--you can set up an immunization clinic in a parking lot.

We did this a few decades ago--and it ended badly.

Let the Europeans be the guinea pigs on this vaccine--don't you remember Gerald Ford's swine flu vaccine? It killed people.

This has nothing to do with national health, really.


http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/04/28/1976_swine_flu/

1976 was the year of the U.S. Bicentennial. 1976 was a presidential election year. 1976 was two years after Watergate caused Nixon's resignation, and one year after the fall of Saigon. The U.S. government, both Republicans and Democrats, had never been held in such low esteem. Practically every elected official felt an overwhelming itch that patriotic year to do something to get the public thinking of them as good guys again. A swine flu pandemic was an opportunity on a plate. What better way to get into the good graces of the voters than to save them from a plague?

Between March 13 and March 24, the U.S. government dealt with the perceived flu emergency at fever pitch. The vaccine request went from the CDC to the secretary of HEW (Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the forerunner of today's Department of Health and Human Services), and reached the president's desk in less than a week. On March 24, the day after he lost the North Carolina primary to Ronald Reagan, President Gerald Ford welcomed the top virologists in the nation to a meeting in the White House and asked them if the nation was facing a swine flu epidemic. Would mass vaccinations be necessary? The doctors all said yes.

After the meeting, President Ford held a press conference with Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin, developers of the polio vaccine. The president heralded the impending flu plague and asked Congress for $135 million to investigate the development of a swine flu vaccine, with the goal of vaccinating the citizenry. This was probably the first time that most of the nation had heard of swine flu.

Congress, with few exceptions, raced to support the bill. Knowing the Republican president would not, could not veto a bill he requested, the Democratically controlled House attached $1.8 billion dollars in welfare and environmental spending to the flu bill. President Ford signed the bill on April 15, 1976, and incorrectly remarked to the press that the Fort Dix swine flu was identical to the deadly 1918 variety. He announced the immunization program would begin in October.

The scientists began to come to their senses. By July, they were pretty much agreed that a flu pandemic in 1976 would not lead to 1 million U.S. dead. The flu strain extracted from Private Lewis, they learned, was much less virulent that the 1918 strain, and modern medicine could handle an outbreak far better than the World War I doctors could. The World Health Organization ordered hospitals to keep a global lookout for swine flu, but it did not request mass immunization of the population.

But the U.S. government was unstoppable. Congress began to pressure the drug companies to work faster toward development of a swine flu vaccine. The drug companies insisted that proper vaccine development required years of experimentation and clinical trials, and they were reluctant to develop and distribute an untested drug. The drug companies suggested that they could work faster if they were given immunity from lawsuits in the event something went wrong with the vaccine. Congress refused. The issue of legal liability remained at an impasse until Aug. 2, 1976. . . . .On Aug. 3, Congress agreed to completely indemnify the drug companies against any and all lawsuits they might incur as a result of the distribution of swine flu vaccine. The drug companies got to work.........

[Shagbark Hickory]

4. In that case why would I not want the Europeans to be the guinea swines?

I don't get it.

[MADem]

5. Well, that's not terribly altruistic, and it doesn't prove the superiority of their health care

system, which was tangential to your thesis. It's a GOP talking point. Sign up for "national health," and those baastids will experiment on ya!

It's not the truth, but that's in your argument.