The Atheist Communist Caliphate Made Flesh, Spread the Clusterfuck Around Thread

[Powdered Toast Man]

Don't know if it's been brought up here, but...

Should those who don't believe in evolution be denied flu shots, since the reason there's a new one every year is because the flu virus is constantly evolving?

I ain't come from no goddamned monkey.

[Chuck to Chuck]

Don't know if it's been brought up here, but...

Should those who don't believe in evolution be denied flu shots, since the reason there's a new one every year is because the flu virus is constantly evolving?

Four of the five of us got flu shots.  Four of the five of us have been sick the last few weeks (as Fork can attest).  Guess who didn't get a shot and hasn't gotten sick?

[Brownie]

Don't know if it's been brought up here, but...

Should those who don't believe in evolution be denied flu shots, since the reason there's a new one every year is because the flu virus is constantly evolving?

If they're allocating their own resources to get the flu shot, then they can decide for themselves whether it's a good investment, instead of having government decide who "needs" one.

[Chuck to Chuck]

Don't know if it's been brought up here, but...

Should those who don't believe in evolution be denied flu shots, since the reason there's a new one every year is because the flu virus is constantly evolving?

If they're allocating their own resources to get the flu shot, then they can decide for themselves whether it's a good investment, instead of having government decide who "needs" one.

Is the government rationing flu shots according to need?

I think the point here was pre-qualification to limited supply.  This would seem to be good demand side economics.  If you eliminate a portion of demand while maintaining the same supply, the new equilibrium price is lower, right?

Deny them a flu shot and, when they die from H1Ni, give them a Darwin award!

[Brownie]

Or you could increase supply.

All I'm saying is that it shouldn't take a pregnant woman until last week to be able to get a swine flu shot.

[Quality Start Machine]

Or you could increase supply.

All I'm saying is that it shouldn't take a pregnant woman until last week to be able to get a swine flu shot.

Problem there isn't supply, it's distribution. There's been H1N1 vaccines available for a few weeks.

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

Or you could increase supply.

Who?

[Chuck to Chuck]

Or you could increase supply.

All I'm saying is that it shouldn't take a pregnant woman until last week to be able to get a swine flu shot.

Dunno about that.  I thought H1Ni production was at capacity.

[Brownie]

Or you could increase supply.

Who?

The same people eliminating a portion of demand.

Why is distribution such a problem? Perishable goods with higher demand are available on demand, fairly inexpensively, everywhere in the U.S.

[Dr. Nguyen Van Falk]

Or you could increase supply.

Who?

The same people eliminating a portion of demand.

Why is distribution such a problem? Perishable goods with higher demand are available on demand, fairly inexpensively, everywhere in the U.S.

A vaccine is not a tomato.

There's a process involved in preparing, testing, manufacturing, testing and testing a vaccine against a new strain.

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/notes/h1n1_vaccine_20090806/en/index.html

It takes approximately five to six months for the first supplies of approved vaccine to become available once a new strain of influenza virus with pandemic potential is identified and isolated. These months are needed because the process of producing a new vaccine involves many sequential steps, and each of these steps requires a certain amount of time to complete. The vaccine development process from start (obtaining a virus sample) to end (availability of vaccine for use) is summarized below.

...

The full process, in a best case scenario, can be completed in five to six months. Then the first final pandemic vaccine lot would be available for distribution and use.



Key: The arrows with dotted lines preceded by non-broken arrows indicate the time period required for the first time an activity is done (non-broken arrow line) that is then repeated (dotted arrow line). The solid lines signify that the activity takes place within a finite period.

Note they say "best case scenario."

Sometimes, it's not a best case.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/711245

Detailed information about snags in the manufacturing process emerged yesterday during a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an expert panel that makes recommendations to the CDC. Bruce Gellin, MD, MPH, director of the National Vaccine Program Office of the Department of Health and Human Services, told the committee that summer production of H1N1 vaccine lagged behind schedule because yields of vaccine immunogen from chicken eggs fell short of those gained in initial experiments. "For some manufacturers, it was 3- to 4-fold less than expected," said Dr. Gellin.

Manufacturers tweaked their production methods to boost immunogen yield, so that it equals or even surpasses the initial projections, but this increased efficiency will not make a difference in H1N1 vaccine supplies for at least several weeks, Dr. Gellin said. Delays in producing seasonal flu vaccine also have been a factor because the same set of manufacturers makes both types of vaccine. In addition, facilities that package both vaccines have experienced interruptions.

In short: Fork is wrong. Distribution isn't the main problem. Supply is.

[Slaky]

Or you could increase supply.

Who?

The same people eliminating a portion of demand.

Why is distribution such a problem? Perishable goods with higher demand are available on demand, fairly inexpensively, everywhere in the U.S.

A vaccine is not a tomato.

There's a process involved in preparing, testing, manufacturing, testing and testing a vaccine against a new strain.

http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/notes/h1n1_vaccine_20090806/en/index.html

It takes approximately five to six months for the first supplies of approved vaccine to become available once a new strain of influenza virus with pandemic potential is identified and isolated. These months are needed because the process of producing a new vaccine involves many sequential steps, and each of these steps requires a certain amount of time to complete. The vaccine development process from start (obtaining a virus sample) to end (availability of vaccine for use) is summarized below.

...

The full process, in a best case scenario, can be completed in five to six months. Then the first final pandemic vaccine lot would be available for distribution and use.



Key: The arrows with dotted lines preceded by non-broken arrows indicate the time period required for the first time an activity is done (non-broken arrow line) that is then repeated (dotted arrow line). The solid lines signify that the activity takes place within a finite period.

Note they say "best case scenario."

Sometimes, it's not a best case.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/711245

Detailed information about snags in the manufacturing process emerged yesterday during a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an expert panel that makes recommendations to the CDC. Bruce Gellin, MD, MPH, director of the National Vaccine Program Office of the Department of Health and Human Services, told the committee that summer production of H1N1 vaccine lagged behind schedule because yields of vaccine immunogen from chicken eggs fell short of those gained in initial experiments. "For some manufacturers, it was 3- to 4-fold less than expected," said Dr. Gellin.

Manufacturers tweaked their production methods to boost immunogen yield, so that it equals or even surpasses the initial projections, but this increased efficiency will not make a difference in H1N1 vaccine supplies for at least several weeks, Dr. Gellin said. Delays in producing seasonal flu vaccine also have been a factor because the same set of manufacturers makes both types of vaccine. In addition, facilities that package both vaccines have experienced interruptions.

In short: Fork is wrong. Distribution isn't the main problem. Supply is.

I'm a little surprised you had to throw all this together - I thought it was common knowledge that there simply aren't enough vaccines ready.

[R-V]

If you're a simple caveman like me and don't understand why healthcare has gotten so goddamn expensive to the point that it'll cripple our economy in a few years, this is a good start:

Somewhere in the United States at this moment, a patient with chest pain, or a tumor, or a cough is seeing a doctor. And the damning question we have to ask is whether the doctor is set up to meet the needs of the patient, first and foremost, or to maximize revenue.

There is no insurance system that will make the two aims match perfectly. But having a system that does so much to misalign them has proved disastrous. As economists have often pointed out, we pay doctors for quantity, not quality. As they point out less often, we also pay them as individuals, rather than as members of a team working together for their patients.

Providing health care is like building a house. The task requires experts, expensive equipment and materials, and a huge amount of coördination. Imagine that, instead of paying a contractor to pull a team together and keep them on track, you paid an electrician for every outlet he recommends, a plumber for every faucet, and a carpenter for every cabinet. Would you be surprised if you got a house with a thousand outlets, faucets, and cabinets, at three times the cost you expected, and the whole thing fell apart a couple of years later?

When it comes to making care better and cheaper, changing who pays the doctor will make no more difference than changing who pays the electrician. The lesson of the high-quality, low-cost communities is that someone has to be accountable for the totality of care.

I finally read this whole article.

It's worth your time.

The upshot seems to be a suggestion by Gawande that lower costs and better patient care are not in fact diametrically opposed, but rather go hand in hand, regardless of who's ultimately footing the bill.

Here's a bookend to the Atul Gawande article.

Gruber is a leading health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is consulted by politicians in both parties. He was one of almost two dozen top economists who sent President Obama a letter earlier this month insisting that reform won't succeed unless it "bends the curve" in the long-term growth of health care costs. And, on that front, Gruber likes what he sees in the Reid proposal. Actually he likes it a lot.

No one can say for certain that these initiatives will improve efficiency enough to slow the growth in health care spending. Some are only pilots; others would affect only a small portion of providers' revenue from Medicare. CBO typically evaluates them skeptically: it generally scores little or no savings from most of them. Former CBO director Robert Reischauer, who signed the November 17 letter, says that's not surprising. "CBO is there to score savings for which we have a high degree of confidence that they will materialize," says Reischauer, now president of the Urban Institute. "There are many promising approaches [in these reform ideas] but you...can't deposit them in the bank." In the long run, Reischauer says, it's likely "that maybe half of them, or a third of them, will prove to be successful. But that would be very important."

This latest tidbit is one more signal from the White House that it considers cost control a priority--a message it has been sending privately, during negotiations with Congress and interest groups, from day one.

[CBStew]

You can't tell me that there are no death panels.  The death panel has already decided that old folks like me can't get the H1N1 vaccine.  What other proof do you need?  Dead Pool here I come.

[Oleg]

You can't tell me that there are no death panels.  The death panel has already decided that old folks like me can't get the H1N1 vaccine.  What other proof do you need?  Dead Pool here I come.

On the bright side, you'll get your name in the papers.

[Chuck to Chuck]

Alexi The Crook speaks:

Illinois Treasurer and U.S. Senate hopeful Alexi Giannoulias said Tuesday that a "minimal" amount of the $70 million he and his siblings received in 2007 and 2008 dividends from Broadway Bank, the troubled Chicago lender the family owns, actually went to them individually.

Responding to concerns that the family paid itself big dividends from the real estate lender just as housing markets were imploding, Mr. Giannoulias said that most of that money went to pay taxes and to settle the estate of his father, bank founder Demetris Giannoulias, who died in 2006.

For his part, as a 3.6% shareholder of Broadway, Mr. Giannoulias said he received $2.5 million in dividends over the period. He kept something less than $1 million, with the rest going for taxes and his share of the estate expenses, he said. The campaign will release his tax returns with detailed information Wednesday.

Mr. Giannoulias couldn't quantify how much of the $70 million went for taxes and the estate, though, saying that would have to come from his brother, Demetris, who runs the bank and thus far hasn't provided the information.
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This guy is a fraud who, if the GOP were smart (they're not), would be the way to investigate Obama.  It's not Rezko that's Obama's problem, it's Alexi.