Our government is forever whining about, threatening against, high drug prices. Our pharmaceutical industry is “fighting” the Chinese in this economic “war” with both its hands tied behind its back.
The government's plan for "contact tracing" to prevent the spread of COVID-19 relies on huge amounts of government spending, plus unproven science as to the nature of the disease.
Did the hardliners win at Versailles because the Americans were too weak with the flu to object? If so, it would be just one way that disease profoundly affected public policy in the wake of the 1918 flu.
What proponents of lockdowns mean by “follow the science” is that statements made by scientists should be accepted as axioms. An obvious problem exists when scientists make conflicting statements.
The medical profession has long employed the state to pad doctor salaries and influence. Before the Flexner Report, mechanics made more than doctors and the brightest students avoided the profession to enter the clergy.
If we do not correctly take into account the opportunity cost, in terms of lives that can be lost from lockdowns, then we will most likely continue to make bad decisions in the future.
In a free country, doctors would be free to prescribe whatever drugs they wish to anyone for any reason. In fact, individuals should be free to buy drugs without a special government-required doctor's note.
Americans were once harangued by government "experts" about the need to slow down on highways in order to save lives. Few listened. Today, laws demanding everyone "stay at home" may suffer a similar fate.
The state currently enjoys a vastly unbalanced share of the power within a society, such an arrangement is not in any way preordained, and the assumption that it must be betrays a narrowness of vision and a lack of historical knowledge.
