Hi Dale,

Doesn't this sound like a half-truth to you?...

Why in heaven's name would any company sell for such deeply discounted prices that there was no longer any profit??? A strange business proposition to be sure!

I rather see the vaccine business as one where the capitalist ideal *MUST* be tempered with societal need.
A drug company that makes vaccines no doubt has - especially at today's vastly inflated prices for drugs - drugs that are far far more profitable than their line(s) of vaccines. So even though the vaccines ARE PROFITABLE, their profit margins are too small to be of interest. So, as long as you're not the last company to get out of the business of vaccines, you'll be able to do so with hardly a whimper (and even praise from the huge shareholders).

The strictly capitalist "solution" to the problem is to make vaccine production profitable 'again' (remember, it *is* profitable, but not as profitable as...)! Now there's a fine concept - tie the price of vaccines not to the cost of production but rather to the profits available to a companies' most expensive drugs! Isn't that the complete turn-around of capitalism though - getting the purchasers clamouring for higher prices!? Capitalism's idea is that competition will LOWER prices.

Here's another 'business practise' that has happened, at least in the drug business in Canada... A drug company with a patent about to expire will offer a generics drug maker a large cash amount (like $20,000,000.) to stay out of the market for n years, where n may be 3 or 5 or ?.

These are simple examples of capitalism run amok. Businesses are now manipulating the market by "legal" means for their own greater profits. I suspect we are witnessing the same thing with the price of oil.

Jim


>Before we start blaiming the Republicans, you might read this quote from the Orange County Register:
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>"In 1994, in the early years of the Clinton administration, the government, largely through the involvement of then-first lady Hillary Clinton, decided to do something about the declining availability of vaccine for children. Unfortunately, as Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute, a think tank specializing in health policy issues, reminded us, the Vaccines for Children program, set up in 1994, consisted of making the government the purchaser of 60 percent of vaccine for children - at deeply discounted prices. This made vaccine manufacturing even less profitable - or money-losing for some companies - and more companies simply got out of the business."
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>>An excellent example is past Gov. Gilmore(R) of Virginia who got voted into office based on his pledge to get rid of the car tax(which never happened). I'd gladly pay more taxes for better quality schools and healthcare. Another example of the flubs of the Republicans is the Flu vaccine problem. No doubt they insisted on keeping it privitized, based on principle, even though the companies can't make any money on it. Now there's a chance most ordinary folks won't get it this year. Same thing with guns - why any lunatic should have the right to purchase automatic weapons is beyond me...