Wouldn't that be nice, but the prerequisite to that would be to restore some degree of democratic accountability in Congress and the White House, and the prerequisite to that would be to remove the influence of Big Pharma (and all other massive corporate interests that subvert the public interest for private gain) over the media.
But you're absolutely right that their having failed creates a very dangerous set of conditions, we pretty much already saw the outlines of it with Biden's speech: scapegoat the "unvaccinated" as the cause of the problem.
Sounds lovely, in another world where Legacy Pharma and Legacy The Science (tm) don't see a bunch of racist white supremacist science denying Trump voting Islamophobic transphobic colonialist imperialists trying to start renegade, unregulated drug mills to create poison to kill our children and elderly and screech to Legacy Government to regulate them into oblivion, imprison whoever defied regulations, vilify, cancel, and imprison anyone who patronizes/patronized the open-source outlets, burns the facilities to the ground, and shoots whoever's still stupid enough to be standing still.
Yeah, I can absolutely see the existing ecosystem allowing open source, peer-reviewed, free market-driven research and development gain even the slightest foothold.
In other news, still working on developing alternate food sources for when I lose all rights to banking services and my savings and retirement funds are frozen for promoting terrorism (reading gato malo).
"a thing they did not predict" - then why did most (all?) countries contract for 8 doses?
It's folly to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume we are dealing with honest brokers, and continue with the pretense that this is about a virus. It's a bit like accepting 9/11 was the result of an "intelligence failure" and the patriot act and war on terror are about Muslims with boxcutters and suicide belts.
“Despair of objective truth had been increasingly insinuated into the scientists; indifference to it, and a concentration upon mere power, had been the result.” C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 1945
I got into an internet argument (I know, I know) the other day where the other guy was trying to convince me the "institutions" were still trustworthy in spite of a few bad actors who aren't really experts or representative of the institutions anyway — and even the ones that were, were only lying out of reasonable concern. Defending a gaslighting campaign via gaslighting, truly impressive.
Anyway, more to the point, as much as I love the competence of the market, it seems that the realm of drugs is one that only the staunchest and least "electable" libertarians will touch. Lots of people like to hearken back to the days of companies' not being required to list ingredients on product labels and tying that to an inevitable mass poisoning event if we ever tried to de-monopolize something like the FDA. There is such a long Overton minefield to cross and so many buzz-saws to run into before that even seems like a pipe dream (heh).
Well, I'd like to argue with you that we need something like the FDA, but I agree in this case, they are doing far more harm than good, and, no, they should not be in the business of telling us what drugs we can and cannot take. They've lost that privilege in my eyes.
I understand your point. I'm not sure I trust the free market to solve the problems. People are people. I'm reminded of the Chinese entrepreneurs who padded infant milk formula with powdered melamine and killed a bunch babies. The Chinese government executed them. Maybe the medical-pharma cabal would get in line if they faced summary execution for malfeasance. One can always hope.
Health does not come from a pill or a syringe. We are far too reliant on and inured to their lotions and potions and pills. IMHO, we could do without a lot of it.
I feel more comfortable with some form of government oversight and regulation...call me old fashioned...but the revolving door and perverse incentives must be abolished.
Bayh-Dole was supposed to stop the hemorrhaging of talent from the NIH and CDC to Pharma. Instead, it created an insider trading scheme and unholy incentives.
The Vaccine Injury Court was meant to help people who were injured by vaccines...at least that's how they promoted it. Instead, it's a block to real help.
We can starve the beast by refusing their magic potion jabs that don't stop infection or transmission or mitigate disease for very long.
We can stop buying all their damn drugs.
We can push our elected representatives to create laws to prohibit the revolving doors between Pharma, NIH, CDC, and several universities.
I think the easiest way to inject some market incentives back in the system would be to allow the big pharmaceutical companies to get residual royalties on the sale of repurposed drugs to treat COVID-19. If Merck could suddenly make some money off of Ivermectin, then all of the Horse stories go away. Ditto with Hydroxychloroquine, Luvox, Fenofibrate, and Metformin. We would have a renewed emphasis towards early outpatient treatment without the compulsory jabs.
A timely article. But, unfortunately - our government has checks and balances. But healthcare doesnt. The physician and the patient used to decide. Now the government decides. Right now our healthcare system just needs a simple database. Where everyone who gets the vaccine gets entered into a database - so research and follow-up can be done. The cost would be minimal. Almost nothing compared to what the CDC and NIH budgets are currently. It should have been required of these warp speed players.
Instead we depend on PHE data and Israel. We are not leaders anymore. We are followers. Its embarrassing.
Nice one, Gato - clearly from the heart. But I fear (actually, I know) the very good solutions you suggest will never happen in the USA as it stands now.
Blocking the way is a totally anachronistic Constitution (yes, it's awesome and historic, but still an anachronism). Moreover, a formidable series of additional blocks are provided by 50 equally anachronistic state constitutions (am guessing here, have only dipped into one state's constitution, but it's a mess and I suspect the others are as well).
So for my two cents, the USA is in an unstoppable downward spiral. Reform is just too impossible. Look, even an Equal Rights Amendment has been in the waiting room for over 50 years (some will even hark back 98 years, to its first incarnation).
The situation in many European countries seems a bit more hopeful, because most have more constitutional flexibility, thanks to the post-WW2 reboot.
But for the US, even if a significant majority of the people wanted serious changes to how the country is run, the obstacles presented by Old 1778 would make it mission impossible.
So I think that in the US, it will ultimately be as in so many Latin American countries - somebody tries to take over (and maybe succeeds), the Constitution is suspended, the people don't mind, and the dice start rolling.
Wouldn't that be nice, but the prerequisite to that would be to restore some degree of democratic accountability in Congress and the White House, and the prerequisite to that would be to remove the influence of Big Pharma (and all other massive corporate interests that subvert the public interest for private gain) over the media.
But you're absolutely right that their having failed creates a very dangerous set of conditions, we pretty much already saw the outlines of it with Biden's speech: scapegoat the "unvaccinated" as the cause of the problem.
Sounds lovely, in another world where Legacy Pharma and Legacy The Science (tm) don't see a bunch of racist white supremacist science denying Trump voting Islamophobic transphobic colonialist imperialists trying to start renegade, unregulated drug mills to create poison to kill our children and elderly and screech to Legacy Government to regulate them into oblivion, imprison whoever defied regulations, vilify, cancel, and imprison anyone who patronizes/patronized the open-source outlets, burns the facilities to the ground, and shoots whoever's still stupid enough to be standing still.
Yeah, I can absolutely see the existing ecosystem allowing open source, peer-reviewed, free market-driven research and development gain even the slightest foothold.
In other news, still working on developing alternate food sources for when I lose all rights to banking services and my savings and retirement funds are frozen for promoting terrorism (reading gato malo).
"a thing they did not predict" - then why did most (all?) countries contract for 8 doses?
It's folly to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume we are dealing with honest brokers, and continue with the pretense that this is about a virus. It's a bit like accepting 9/11 was the result of an "intelligence failure" and the patriot act and war on terror are about Muslims with boxcutters and suicide belts.
“Despair of objective truth had been increasingly insinuated into the scientists; indifference to it, and a concentration upon mere power, had been the result.” C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 1945
I got into an internet argument (I know, I know) the other day where the other guy was trying to convince me the "institutions" were still trustworthy in spite of a few bad actors who aren't really experts or representative of the institutions anyway — and even the ones that were, were only lying out of reasonable concern. Defending a gaslighting campaign via gaslighting, truly impressive.
Anyway, more to the point, as much as I love the competence of the market, it seems that the realm of drugs is one that only the staunchest and least "electable" libertarians will touch. Lots of people like to hearken back to the days of companies' not being required to list ingredients on product labels and tying that to an inevitable mass poisoning event if we ever tried to de-monopolize something like the FDA. There is such a long Overton minefield to cross and so many buzz-saws to run into before that even seems like a pipe dream (heh).
the hill that must be defended is vaccine passports! do not comply!
when i consider the nih/fda on the virus charade i recall melvin udall (jack nicholson):
just take pubic servant 'and take away reason and accountability".
Well, I'd like to argue with you that we need something like the FDA, but I agree in this case, they are doing far more harm than good, and, no, they should not be in the business of telling us what drugs we can and cannot take. They've lost that privilege in my eyes.
I understand your point. I'm not sure I trust the free market to solve the problems. People are people. I'm reminded of the Chinese entrepreneurs who padded infant milk formula with powdered melamine and killed a bunch babies. The Chinese government executed them. Maybe the medical-pharma cabal would get in line if they faced summary execution for malfeasance. One can always hope.
Health does not come from a pill or a syringe. We are far too reliant on and inured to their lotions and potions and pills. IMHO, we could do without a lot of it.
I feel more comfortable with some form of government oversight and regulation...call me old fashioned...but the revolving door and perverse incentives must be abolished.
Bayh-Dole was supposed to stop the hemorrhaging of talent from the NIH and CDC to Pharma. Instead, it created an insider trading scheme and unholy incentives.
The Vaccine Injury Court was meant to help people who were injured by vaccines...at least that's how they promoted it. Instead, it's a block to real help.
We can starve the beast by refusing their magic potion jabs that don't stop infection or transmission or mitigate disease for very long.
We can stop buying all their damn drugs.
We can push our elected representatives to create laws to prohibit the revolving doors between Pharma, NIH, CDC, and several universities.
I think the easiest way to inject some market incentives back in the system would be to allow the big pharmaceutical companies to get residual royalties on the sale of repurposed drugs to treat COVID-19. If Merck could suddenly make some money off of Ivermectin, then all of the Horse stories go away. Ditto with Hydroxychloroquine, Luvox, Fenofibrate, and Metformin. We would have a renewed emphasis towards early outpatient treatment without the compulsory jabs.
A timely article. But, unfortunately - our government has checks and balances. But healthcare doesnt. The physician and the patient used to decide. Now the government decides. Right now our healthcare system just needs a simple database. Where everyone who gets the vaccine gets entered into a database - so research and follow-up can be done. The cost would be minimal. Almost nothing compared to what the CDC and NIH budgets are currently. It should have been required of these warp speed players.
Instead we depend on PHE data and Israel. We are not leaders anymore. We are followers. Its embarrassing.
"you don’t even need car safety agencies. manufacturers are selling products WAY safer than the minimum requirements (EXCEPT TESLA).
My money's on ever more Trump blaming and no substantive change.
Nice one, Gato - clearly from the heart. But I fear (actually, I know) the very good solutions you suggest will never happen in the USA as it stands now.
Blocking the way is a totally anachronistic Constitution (yes, it's awesome and historic, but still an anachronism). Moreover, a formidable series of additional blocks are provided by 50 equally anachronistic state constitutions (am guessing here, have only dipped into one state's constitution, but it's a mess and I suspect the others are as well).
So for my two cents, the USA is in an unstoppable downward spiral. Reform is just too impossible. Look, even an Equal Rights Amendment has been in the waiting room for over 50 years (some will even hark back 98 years, to its first incarnation).
The situation in many European countries seems a bit more hopeful, because most have more constitutional flexibility, thanks to the post-WW2 reboot.
But for the US, even if a significant majority of the people wanted serious changes to how the country is run, the obstacles presented by Old 1778 would make it mission impossible.
So I think that in the US, it will ultimately be as in so many Latin American countries - somebody tries to take over (and maybe succeeds), the Constitution is suspended, the people don't mind, and the dice start rolling.
You can't hear my sigh. But it's a real one.
Bravo!
Fantastic article!
Seems like the starting point here is a government shutdown!