Vaccines are our best defense against infectious diseases, but vaccines may not be 100% safe or effective. Our bodies react differently to vaccines. Some people may have side effects after vaccination, and some may not be completely protected from disease. Scientists are constantly working to develop safer, more effective vaccines.

Vaccines, like any medication, can cause side effects and pose risks. There may be rare side effects or delayed reactions that may be detected only after the vaccine is given to millions of people after it is licensed and recommended. However, a decision not to immunize a child or an at risk adult also involves risk.  It is a decision to put the child, the elderly or immuno-compromised  and others who come into contact with him or her at risk of getting a disease that could be deadly.

Swine flu may not have reached the epidemic proportions that the Obama administration had heralded.  It may not call for mandatory vaccinations that the US government has issued, but it’s a safe bet that people at risk for contracting the virus  could benefit from the same science that wiped out so many deadly diseases and has extended millions of lives around the globe.

Given the vital role of medical products companies and the magnitude of their challenges, one might imagine that this industry would be admired. To some extent, it is. Leading research organizations such as the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s disease proactively build bridges with industry leaders, solicit advice from industry scientists, and fund projects in industry labs.

But this enlightened view of industry is not widespread. This is largely because of the disproportionate influence of a coterie of prominent critics we have previously dubbed “pharmascolds,” who routinely vilify the medical products industry and portray academics working with it as traitors and sellouts. These critics are pious academics, self-righteous medical journal editors, and opportunistic politicians and journalists. Their condemnation of anyone’s legitimate profit — it’s all “corruption” in their book — has in fact materially enhanced their own careers. They extrapolate from occasional behavioral lapses in industry — which is equally, if not more prevalent, in universities — to demonize the market and portray scientific medicine as an ascetic religion, which it is not.

Unfortunately, the industry that has saved millions of lives and saved trillions of dollars (avoiding surgical interventions and hospital costs) has been very reticent about promoting their achievements.  Like any industry, we’ve made mistakes, but overall I think we could all agree that we live better, more healthy, pain free lives because of the progress made in pharmaceutical milestones.

You think price controls and government regulation is the answer? The truth is, drug companies have been a real engine of innovation. If we destroy their profitability through price controls and government rationing, the costs would be very real. The recent slow-down in the introduction of new blockbuster drugs is in part the delayed result of underinvestment in the 1990s — the last time the political class (read Bill and Hillary) toyed with national health insurance.
Drug companies are looking to merge to save costs and diversify both geographically and into biotechnology. Yet neither one is all that safe a haven. The U.S. is the last major pharmaceutical market without universal price controls, and as such has been the world’s main financier of new drug discoveries. In a world of government-run and -priced health care, biotech innovation will also be as much at risk as traditional drug development. The biggest price we may pay for a health-care system run from Washington are the therapies we never get as a result.
For investors and the economy, the recent rout in health stocks is a case of wealth destruction. For the rest of us, it’s also a sign of the health destruction that will result if Washington’s current policy trajectory becomes law.