The US will pay Moderna $176 million to develop an mRNA pandemic bird flu vaccine
The US will pay Moderna $176 million to develop an mRNA pandemic bird flu vaccine
The U.S. government will pay the vaccine maker Moderna $176 million to accelerate development of a pandemic influenza vaccine.
And then Moderna will charge the citizens for it via insurance or out of pocket.
Love being double-charged, don’t you? Your tax money and then your paycheck.
200 million is a pittance today. Vaccines are generally more effective than pills outside of antibiotics. But more importantly the USDA should be requiring more animal vaccinations and there should be more investment in vaccinating livestock if we're going to continue to eat mammals and birds
If we were a reasonable country, we'd have a research arm of the FDA that was employing scientists/chemists to develop drugs for the most basic health needs of its citizens and dispensing them at cost to keep drugs affordable but developing cures versus disease maintenance drugs. It was something that Elizabeth Warren proposed in 2016 that was absolutely the right thing to run on.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinese-scientists-cure-diabetes-using-205304771.html
But we live in a hellish American landscape where our government does absolutely the bare minimum amount of support for those in need. And does so begrudgingly.
For vaccines, we shouldn't even be dispensing them at cost. Vaccinations are the second most cost effective public health intervention ever, beaten only by clean drinking water.
In purely financial terms, the cost of vaccinations are lower than the average cost to the US tax payer of someone getting sick. The public service of people not getting sick is a nice bonus. As is reducing the chances of this becoming another Covid style economic catastrophe (plus, again, the public service of protecting your citizens)
If between two variants in a decision there's a huge difference in incomes for someone, that someone will find a way to make the deciding party interested in that difference.
Which is why good guys should introduce good things slowly and carefully, the way bad guys introduce bad things (unless they are too powerful to care).
And does so begrudgingly.
Totally willing to help the very needy...pharma bros get a piece of that sweet, sweet government pie. Why let government do anything when outsourcing to private capital helps me buy my yach...er...feed my kids.
"Small government" in a nutshell
I am not sure you are aware of the immense costs to develop new drugs for diseases. At least that's what your comment sounds like, making new drugs. To do that as a state entity is completely unrealistic as it would take a massive investment from the government. Most drugs developed also fail at some stage of the process, meaning you lost all that money and work on it.
Now, if you meant that the government should produce already established basic drugs that are known to work, sell those at cost, yes, that would be a very sensible approach.
hell, even if its just as an exercise due to the less contagious nature. we need that factory tooled, with multiple vendors.
Okay, but have they considered horse paste?
It's apple flavored.
Maybe this time we go for donkey medicine
As long as fruit flavor is involved somehow.
Is that what that is?! I could never quite put my finger on what it tastes like.
Good
Shame. Since Covid I’ve become a huge fan of pandemics.
Collect them all!
Are we getting a proportional slice of the profits for our charitable donation?
Not a chance. We'll pay them to develop the product they'll then sell back to us. Yay!
Thank you.
Better idea let's not feed cows any type of poop. Bird flu is coming from feeding cows bird droppings for protein. Let's find some other way to give them protein.
Source?
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-04-18/avian-flu-outbreak-raises-a-disturbing-question-is-our-food-system-built-on-poop "they’re looking at a standard “recycling” practice employed by thousands of farmers across the country: The feeding of animal waste and parts to livestock raised for human consumption. "
I thought it was spread by mosquitoes this is the first I am hearing of the cows eating poop situation
Adoption rate will be abysmal. Thanks, Trump.
Let them get sick and die, what is the issue?
Trash sorts itself is always nice
Price wise, that's a lot less than I expected
Yeah, I wonder who has stock in Moderna?
That sounds like a good deal if it works!
To give to the birds, right?
Right?
We could be even more proactive by banning these disease incubators.
Has the time finally come to ban birds??
Factory farming is a huge problem when it comes to influenza and other diseases spreading and mutating. It certainly doesn't help that farmers are often not given protective equipment like gloves and masks, but even without that, factory farming animals is a huge problem when it comes to the spread of disease.
In this case, it's farming chickens and turkeys (along with other less common birds) that is the problem with influenza in general since it usually begins in bird populations, but it's already spread to cattle farms.