The government, when disease breaks out

[Comrade Akai]

Hey there, comrades. It's happened countless times before and it's probably going to happen many times again. Serious infectious diseases break out in an epidemic, such as SARS, Mad Cow Disease, and the like. And then there's H1N1, which NWO conspiracists say is a hoax and the needle for it a tool for brainwashing...or something like that.

I know a lot less about this than I'd like to. When disease breaks out, what do you think of what governments have done in reaction to it?

[Cooler Reds Will Prevail]

I have a lot of family and friends in the public health sector, many of whom work with epidemics and infectious diseases. From what they tell me, the government puts such little emphasis on preventive care (for obvious reasons!) that they simply don't have the resources to combat these things effectively at all. Especially here in California, public health got GUTTED in the past few years. The California Office of AIDS, for example, got its budget cut in half, and it already didn't have enough. Which, of course, opens up the door for private companies to develop vaccines and drugs and such and charge people like hell for them. Reminds me of what happened in V for Vendetta with the "St. Mary's Virus".

I think governments purposefully underreact a lot of times to provide space for the private sector to do its thing... I don't think there's any mass conspiracy where diseases are purposefully being created, I just think that there is a lot of opportunism when they do come up on their own.

[Comrade Akai]

Bump?