[lit-ideas] Re: A Possibly Very Good Idea
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 15:31:57 -0400
(Sent to Theoria by accident)
> [Original Message]
> From: Eric Yost <eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <THEORIA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 8/19/2006 2:34:16 PM
> Subject: [THEORIA] A Possibly Very Good Idea
>
>
> These ships would be sent all over the world to treat
> diseases in less developed nations. The benefits would be:
>
> (1) good PR for the US,
The U.S. isn't interested in PR.
> (2) increased knowledge of tropical diseases that our
> immigration policies will eventually bring to the US,
The U.S. isn't interested in increased knowledge of tropical diseases that are
already here.
> (3) economies of scale in drug research for those diseases,
> and importantly,
Pharma doesn't do research and doesn't care about research for diseases. They
want to market blockbuster drugs in different packages to the widest audience
possible, which is to say, cholesterol lowering drugs, ED drugs, etc. Don't
need fancy research facilities for that.
> (4) the ability to respond to a bioterror attack in the
> United States.
>
The U.S. doesn't care about a bioterror attack. They reduced funding for the
CDC.
> At present, the CDC has admitted that it has no
> infrastructure to deal with bio- or radiological terrorism.
Exactly. The U.S. doesn't care about it except to the extent that it distracts
attention from policies and mismanagement.
> Having a fleet of hospital ships would allow the US to
> respond quickly to such attacks in US coastal cities.
>
So would properly managing, or not beginning, this war in Iraq lessen the
vulnerability to attack. It didn't happen.
> If there were a terrorist attack in Philadelphia, for
> example, our hospital ships could be quickly called upon to
> serve the area, thereby preventing the collapse of the
> healthcare system.
>
It's a nice fantasy.
> The obvious drawback is the cost, but there seem to be many
> pluses to this idea. Feedback? Tweaks?
>
The biggest drawback is that the U.S. doesn't care about things like this.
Realistically, it can never happen in the U.S. the way things stand today. We
may as well talk about what the world would have been like if Gore was elected,
or if Kennedy wasn't shot.
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