Reply #51: Good grief. The main point of "my" sub-thread [View All]

[HamdenRice]

is what I should have said. We were just discussing corporate behavior and cost benefit analysis. I asked you several questions. Can you answer them?

As for your questions, yes, I have a problem with your analysis. The effects of a disease have different legal and ethical consequences from the effects of a product.

To "depoliticize" the issue, look at the vegetable, rhubarb. Lots of people grow rhubarb in the gardens, harvest it and eat it. But if you don't cut it correctly and include the leaves, it is poisonous. If you are stupid and harvest your own rhubarb, fail to clean it properly, eat it and get sick, then your situation, while unfortunate, does not lead to liability on the part of anyone part. But if you buy canned rhubarb that was improperly cleaned, you eat and and get sick, then the company is responsible, legally and ethically.

Anyone who produces a vaccine has a legal and ethical duty to make it as safe as possible. The fact that measles exists in nature does not excuse a drug company from making a vaccine that makes people sick. It may not reflect malfeasance, but it reflects "negligence" if there is an alternative method -- such as a vaccine based on a dead virus or some protein of the virus.

Now, can you address what your affirmative claims are about corporate profit driven motivation and public health that I already posed?