“But a government that tries to people from themselves is too intrusive for me, which is why I oppose seat belt laws for adults. I always wear my seat belt, and I’d be an idiot not to, but that’s none of the government’s concern.”

Um… ok… So, a government of the people, by the people and for the people is all good and well, unless you disagree with those people, in which case… what?

If you don’t like what the government does today, what have you done about it lately?

Greg in Austin Says:
December 27th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Kevin said,

“Of course, I’m being overly dramatic, but why must people be forced to do something they don’t want to do? “

Quite simply, sometimes laws are made to save lives. You are absolutely right, we shouldn’t have to force people to do something they don’t want to, and yet we have seatbelt laws, speed limits, drug enforcement, drinking ages, stop signs, etc. Its sad that we have to work so hard to convince people to save their own lives, the lives of their children, and help protect the lives of people around them.

Its not forcing an opinion; its ensuring the health and safety of human beings.

Which is part of the problem. The government should intervene to protect people from other people – that’s why we have laws against drunk driving and why most states require children in public schools to be vaccinated. But a government that tries to people from themselves is too intrusive for me, which is why I oppose seat belt laws for adults. I always wear my seat belt, and I’d be an idiot not to, but that’s none of the government’s concern.

“The 2008 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine went to three people this year, Luc Montagnier and his (ahem, female) partner Françoise Barre-Sinoussi for discovering HIV, and Harald zur Hausen for his work on the human papilloma virus (HPV) and its link to cervical cancer.
Wouldn’t you know it, AstraZeneca just happens to have a big fat stake in two lucrative HPV vaccines.”

Many organisation do things because it’s part of their mission statement or the leader feels honor bound to do so. While there are examples of businesses behaving irresponsibly many of the people involved are good people asking decision based on how much good they can do. And you’ve failed to demonstrate why ‘Big Pharma’ is bad. Hell. You haven’t said anything in your two comments.

You should know that Big Pharma does make money on vaccines, otherwise why would they do it?

First of all, you are only talking about flu vaccines and 2nd, all you proved is that it’s a monopoly. That’s even worse.

You should know that there is no money in vaccines business. That’s why it is very difficult to get Big Pharma to develop, manufacture and distribute vaccines. That’s why we are dependent on few small companies/facilities to manufacture our vaccine stock. The reason we had a flu vaccine shortage a few years back was that a SINGLE facility in UK was shutdown due to contamination threat. Get it? Single facility in UK (and not Big Pharma) supplies (at least) a major portion of our flu vaccine requirement.
Know your facts before you shout yourself hoarse about community-fleecing vaccination cartels.