Vaccine Music To Libertarian Ears

Ryan BourneRonald Reagan once said,“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.” In the U.S.’s fraught political climate, sadly it was predictable that even the welcome news of Pfizer’s promising COVID-19 trial results would produce a political dogfight about the timing of the announcement and who should be thanked for the prospect of the pandemic ending sooner.Vice President Mike Pence, for example, tweeted this morning: “HUGE NEWS: Thanks to the public‐​private partnership forged by President@realDonaldTrump,@pfizer announced its Coronavirus Vaccine trial is EFFECTIVE, preventing infection in 90% of its volunteers. ” Certainly, the federal government helped grease the wheels of COVID-19 vaccine development with commitments to buy doses from certain companies (something whicheconomists pushed hard for.) In Pfizer ’s case, that wasan agreement to pay $1.9 billion for 100 million doses(enough for 50 million people) with an option to purchase 500 million more —provided the vaccine prove at least 50 percent more effective than a placebo. Yet, is it really the “public‐​private partnership” here that delivered this particular success?Interestingly Pfizer was not part of the government ’s Operation Warp Speed program to fund research and development, unlike six other companies. Asked in September why they had opted to shun this money and bear the R&D risks themselves, and what advantages tha...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs