On: The risk psychology of the anti-vaccine movement

[_ck_]

Some key quotes in there to think about:

  RotaTeq costs a little under $4 a dose to make.
  Merck has sold a total of more than 24 million doses
  in the US, most for $69.59 a pop (a 17-fold markup)

  In 19th-century England, Jenner’s smallpox vaccine was
  known to be effective. But despite the Compulsory  
  Vaccination Act of 1853, many people still refused 
  to take it, and thousands died unnecessarily.

  All you have to do to get the measles is to inhabit 
  the airspace of a contagious person within two hours 
  of them being there.

There are going to be parts of this country in several years that are going to be darn dangerous to travel to as herd-immunity will be gone for several major diseases. I personally think the anti-vaccine people are way overboard.

[rimantas → _ck_]

Does that take into account R&D?

[dschobel → rimantas]

It's really frustrating that we can't get honest numbers on how much it takes to bring a drug to market.

In the anti-pharma camp you see people quote the manufacturing price, and then you get the pharma companies quoting their entire operating budgets.

[protomyth → dschobel]

I used to work in clinical trials, and while I cannot comment on exact figures, the drug companies pay a lot of money over a very long period to release a drug. The big problem is that they only have 3 to 5 years to make all the money back and get enough of a profit to develop more drugs. Not every clinical trial actually works out, and the courts will be a constant problem for every drug.

Do some research on the financial documents of the companies that do the clinical trials.

[gthank → rimantas]

Doubtful, since the number would change with every single dose produced if it did.