# Should the government take over vaccine production? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 7, 2001, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286 "2001-08-07T14:54:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![KeithB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/48db29/32.png) [@KeithB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KeithB)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2001, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/1 "2001-08-07T14:54:54Z")
My wife got poked with a garden implement and I thought it might be a good idea for a tetanus booster since she could not remember when she had received the last one. Surprise! Only emergency rooms have tetanus vaccine because of rationing. You can read about the shortage of tetanus vaccine here: [http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-shot03.html](http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-shot03.html) This seems to be the latest in a long series of vaccine shortages in recent years, which I find intolerable in these times. While I have no problem with drug manufacturers in general, but I think that they have shown that they care more about profits and consolidations than public health. I think the government should pull a TVA and take over public-health critical vaccine production, so we will not be rationing vaccines. ---
**Author:** ![Ivar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ivar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ivar)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2001, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/2 "2001-08-07T21:47:01Z")
I don’t think that would work. What are the reasons the pharma companies are giving for vaccine shortages? Give me a good example of the federal government being able to do something more effectively and efficiently than the private sector. In my experience, it just doesn’t happen… ---
**Author:** ![Ivar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ivar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ivar)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2001, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/3 "2001-08-07T21:50:15Z")
Ok, I just bothered to read the Sun-Times article, which explained quite a bit. Is there any way the gov’t could mandate that in the public interest, Wyeth-Aherst must continue to produce the vaccine until the other company can catch up with demand? ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2001, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/4 "2001-08-07T21:56:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ivar \* > **What are the reasons the pharma companies are giving for vaccine shortages?** I believe that the main reason is liability, which makes the distribution of vaccines costly and financially risky. If the government had the same liability, their costs might be far higher. Another problem is that governments aren’t good at innovation. If they took over the preparatoion and sale of vaccines, medical advances would be slower. A much better solution would be to pass laws limiting the liability of the vaccine manufacturers and distributors. Of course, that would cost lawyers money, and lawyers are major Democratic donors, so… ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2001, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/5 "2001-08-07T22:04:09Z")
IIRC this particular shortage was caused by one of the two companies that made tetanus vaccines stopping production. The remaining supplier didn’t pick up the slack (tetanus vaccine takes eleven months to make so even once they did ramp up their production it takes nearly a year to get it to market). My reaction when I heard this story was that the company that stopped production should not have been allowed to do so without giving adequate notice to the remaining supplier (say eleven months in this case). Even if it required a government subsidy to keep their production going. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2001, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/6 "2001-08-07T22:47:58Z")
Liability may be a factor but not the main one: Link is not working now so: > [@](#): > > “To make matters worse, the federal government, which until 1999 purchased the vaccine at discounted rates and then resold it to states, no longer does so. Officials say the price has risen so high that it outstrips a federal limit on prices that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are allowed to pay for immunizations. > “We used to have a stockpile” of the tetanus/diphtheria vaccine," said Robert Snyder, who is in charge of purchasing vaccines for the CDC’s National Immunization Program. “But that changed when I could no longer buy it.”” Tuesday, March 13, 2001 > > From: Soaring Prices Curb Availability of Tetanus Vaccine > Health: Counties face cuts in immunization programs because state has been unable to buy adequate supplies. > By SHARON BERNSTEIN, LA Times Health Writer. Kinda like Wal-Mart purchasing items in bulk and passing the discount to the customers, but I guess the government should not do that! A similar situation is happening with medicines. More info on wordwide vaccination efforts and manufacturing of vaccines here: [http://www.med.sc.edu:85/lecture/vaccines.htm](http://www.med.sc.edu:85/lecture/vaccines.htm) ---
**Author:** ![KeithB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/48db29/32.png) [@KeithB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KeithB)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2001, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/7 "2001-08-07T23:17:36Z")
I did not mean that the Government should take over all vaccines, just ones that have no more patent protection and are important for the public health. Whoever-it-is can continue to market the Chicken Pox vaccine since it is not a huge public health issue. I think that the CDC could do a pretty good job of manufacturing the stuff. Maybe they could buy the equipment that the other manufacturer is not using. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2001, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/8 "2001-08-07T23:50:14Z")
**december:** \*Another problem is that governments aren’t good at innovation. If they took over the preparatoion and sale of vaccines, medical advances would be slower. \* Nah, government tends to be **better** than the private sector at the sort of innovation that isn’t lucrative for the private sector. It’s true that when there’s good money to be made, private competition is generally much more efficient than government funding (although it often relies heavily on government-sponsored basic research even in those cases), but when there isn’t, the private sector seldom even bothers to try, and you can’t get much worse at innovation than that. This is why many people think that the government should put more research effort into disease control for the chronic diseases of poor countries, since the private sector has much less incentive to do so because it cannot expect much in the way of profits. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/9 "2001-08-08T00:10:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \* > \*\*This is why many people think that the government should put more research effort into disease control for the chronic diseases of poor countries, since the private sector has much less incentive to do so because it cannot expect much in the way of profits. \*\* At the risk of sounding like a cold hearted bastard… Why should my government put any research into disease control for poor countries. My government is there to benefit the US not to benefit poor nations. Marc ---
**Author:** ![SuaSponte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/67e7ee/32.png) [@SuaSponte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuaSponte)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/10 "2001-08-08T00:27:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by KeithB \* > I think the government should pull a TVA and take over public-health critical vaccine production, so we will not be rationing vaccines. Use the government to solve a government-caused problems. Gov’t pays 40-odd% of medical costs in the U.S., (via Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA, among other programs) and a considerably higher percentage of vaccine costs. And the feds haven’t increased their reimbursement rates for pharmaceuticals in 15 years. Sua ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/11 "2001-08-08T01:09:36Z")
Although not really relevant to this instance, I want to point out that many vaccine shortages are caused by the government. Sorta. Vaccines have to pass all sorts of safety and purity tests, as they should. When they fail, they often have to destroy a lot of vaccine, shut everything down, and almost start over. So it’s not like the government is letting them do whatever they want, willy-nilly, at least as far as safety is concerned. ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/12 "2001-08-08T06:11:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MGibson \* > \*\*At the risk of sounding like a cold hearted bastard… > Why should my government put any research into disease control for poor countries. My government is there to benefit the US not to benefit poor nations. \*\* Yes that’s what a cold hearted bastard would say all right. There is a compelling reason for the U.S. to control infectious disease overseas that is so obvious it’s not worth explaining to someone who doesn’t see it in the first place. But the more glaring problem in your post is that you take an unecessarily callous and morally bankrupt position. There is such a thing as ethical considerations even in politics. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/13 "2001-08-08T07:17:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by uglybeech \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by MGibson \* > > \*\*At the risk of sounding like a cold hearted bastard… > > Why should my government put any research into disease control for poor countries. My government is there to benefit the US not to benefit poor nations. \*\* > > Yes that’s what a cold hearted bastard would say all right. > > There is a compelling reason for the U.S. to control infectious disease overseas that is so obvious it’s not worth explaining to someone who doesn’t see it in the first place. \*\* Ah, and here we’re both participating in a board designed to help eliminate ignorance. It might shock you to hear this but I don’t know everything. If you have something to say that might educate me then say it. If you wish to post a snotty reply that adds nothing to the conversation then keep it to yourself or take it to the Pit. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/14 "2001-08-08T15:43:07Z")
Peace, peace, people. **Marc** , I expect that what **uglybeech** is referring to is the fact that our disease control efforts in poor countries, besides the humanitarian brownie points and all that, are good insurance against (a) spread of these diseases into our own population and (b) epidemics in those countries that produce serious economic and/or social destabilization whose effects are harmful to us. In other words, isolationism was always a rather questionable policy, and these days our increasingly globalized economy and mobility makes it even more impracticable. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/15 "2001-08-08T15:56:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \* > Nah, government tends to be **better** than the private sector at the sort of innovation that isn’t lucrative for the private sector. It’s true that when there’s good money to be made, private competition is generally much more efficient than government funding (although it often relies heavily on government-sponsored basic research even in those cases), but when there isn’t, the private sector seldom even bothers to try, and you can’t get much worse at innovation than that. This is why many people think that the government should put more research effort into disease control for the chronic diseases of poor countries, since the private sector has much less incentive to do so because it cannot expect much in the way of profits. I disagree. 1. New vaccines would be used by hundreds of millions or even billions of people, so this should be a potentially lucretive area. 2. I’m not convinced that government is good at innovation. Please provide examples or other support for widespread successsful government innovation in medicine and elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/16 "2001-08-08T17:04:09Z")
**december:** \*1. New vaccines would be used by hundreds of millions or even billions of people, so this should be a potentially lucretive area. \* But many of those billions of people are very poor and could not afford to pay enough for such vaccines (or treatments) to make the research investment for developing them in the private sector competitive with, say, developing new fertility drugs or antidepressants to be marketed to much more affluent consumers in the developed world. As this [National Institutes of Health report](http://www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/drug/antiparasitic.htm) points out, > [@](#): > > Research and development leading to the licensing of new antiparasitic agents has been limited in the private sector primarily as a result of the actual or perceived lack of return on investment for developing drugs for these diseases. As noted above, parasitic diseases are concentrated in developing countries that are characterized by geographic, economic and developmental features that distinguish them from “developed or industrialized” countries. It should be noted that of the over 1200 drugs brought to market between 1975 and 1997, only 1% are indicated for the treatment of tropical diseases. This lack of interest and investment by commercial companies has led to a loss of expertise in industry over the last several decades. Academic scientists interested in parasitic diseases, including those few seeking to discover new drug targets and candidate drugs, lack the knowledge of the critical path to drug development. _2. I’m not convinced that government is good at innovation. Please provide examples or other support for widespread successsful government innovation in medicine and elsewhere._ No problem—thanks for some easy questions for a change, **december**! 🙂 As I said, when there is a widespread perception that there’s good money to be made from innovative research, private competition is usually far more effective at exploiting that than the government is. But in the many, many cases where the private sector doesn’t see an adequate return on its potential investment soon enough, it simply ignores the opportunity for research. And then government institutions, even when hampered by bureaucratic and political red tape, walk off with the innovation laurels. Look at all the [Nobel laureates](http://www.nih.gov/about/almanac/nobel/index.htm) in medicine whose work has been funded by one or more institutes of the NIH, or all the research discoveries from NIST, NSF, NASA, the DOE, etc. (a general discussion of innovation and the symbiosis between the private and public sectors in promoting it, with some details about specific achievements by those institutions, is [here](http://www.eco.utexas.edu/homepages/faculty/Norman/long/DII.html)). In short, it seems ridiculous to me to try to defend the notion that “the government isn’t good at innovation” as some kind of absolute. That implies that all useful innovation is being successfully taken care of by the private sector and government institutions can do nothing but compete with them at a disadvantage, which we know isn’t the case. Being good at something depends not only on your ability to achieve it well but on your willingness even to try to do it in the first place: and that’s why I maintain that the government is often better at innovation than the private sector. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/17 "2001-08-08T17:31:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \*But many of those billions of people are very poor and could not afford to pay enough for such vaccines (or treatments) to make the research investment for developing them in the private sector competitive with, say, developing new fertility drugs or antidepressants to be marketed to much more affluent consumers in the developed world… Research and development leading to the licensing of new antiparasitic agents has been limited in the private sector primarily as a result of the actual or perceived lack of return on investment for developing drugs for these diseases. As noted above, parasitic diseases are concentrated in developing countries that are characterized by geographic, economic and developmental features that distinguish them from “developed or industrialized” countries. **Kimstu** , you can do better than this. Yes, there’s a problem as you point out with respect to, say, parasitic diseases, which **are concentrated** in developing countries. But, an improved new vaccine could be used all over the world. There must be 2 or 3 billion population in countries that **can** afford to pay for their vaccines. Therefore, this general principle doesn’t apply to vaccines. > [@](#): > > … there is a widespread perception that there’s good money to be made from innovative research, private competition is usually far more effective at exploiting that than the government is. But in the many, many cases where the private sector doesn’t see an adequate return on its potential investment soon enough, it simply ignores the opportunity for research. Yes, I agree that this can happen. My impression is that marketing of developed medicines can also be a problem when the financial return isn’t possible, either because the buyer doesn’t have money or because there are too few victims to support the cost of the medicine. > [@](#): > > And then government institutions, even when hampered by bureaucratic and political red tape, walk off with the innovation laurels. Look at all the [Nobel laureates](http://www.nih.gov/about/almanac/nobel/index.htm) in medicine whose work has been funded by one or more institutes of the NIH, or all the research discoveries from NIST, NSF, NASA, the DOE, etc. (a general discussion of innovation and the symbiosis between the private and public sectors in promoting it, with some details about specific achievements by those institutions, is [here](http://www.eco.utexas.edu/homepages/faculty/Norman/long/DII.html)). > > In short, it seems ridiculous to me to try to defend the notion that “the government isn’t good at innovation” as some kind of absolute. That implies that all useful innovation is being successfully taken care of by the private sector and government institutions can do nothing but compete with them at a disadvantage, which we know isn’t the case. Being good at something depends not only on your ability to achieve it well but on your willingness even to try to do it in the first place: and that’s why I maintain that the government is often better at innovation than the private sector. This makes sense in theory. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/18 "2001-08-08T18:25:43Z")
**december:** \*But, an improved new vaccine could be used all over the world. There must be 2 or 3 billion population in countries that can afford to pay for their vaccines. Therefore, this general principle doesn’t apply to vaccines. \* But if these parasitic diseases are concentrated in developing countries, why would two or three billion people elsewhere be interested in vaccinating against them? True, there is the possibility of the spread of such diseases outside the developing countries, and when and if that actually becomes a major epidemiological problem I’m sure the pharma companies will be all over vaccine research for them. In the meantime, however, while the market for such vaccines overwhelmingly consists of poor people, it’s not a lucrative investment compared to developing the next Viagra or Paxil. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/19 "2001-08-08T19:59:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kimstu \* > \*\* > But if these parasitic diseases are concentrated in developing countries, why would two or three billion people elsewhere be interested in vaccinating against them? \*\* Who needs vaccines? A lot of these places are disease ridden because of their living conditions. In the long run we’d be better off building sewage treatment plants, finding good sources of fresh water, decent food, and decent housing. Marc ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2001, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286/20 "2001-08-08T20:25:00Z")
Hmm. Should the government take over production of vaccine. Well, here in the State of Michigan, we (the State) used to produce vaccines. Our Governor sold the lab to those good folk at _BioPort_, allowing _BioPort_ to become the only supplier of Antrax Vaccine to the military with well, judge for yourself the results. Of course, there’s [no guarentee](http://www.whale.to/vaccines/fresno9.html) that the State would have acted any differently. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-government-take-over-vaccine-production/75286.md?page=2)