enthalpy

Tuesday, November 01, 2005


Where the hell does this joker think this money is going to come from?
President Bush announced Tuesday that he would ask Congress for $7.1 billion in emergency funding to prepare the country for a possible flu pandemic.

In a speech at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, Bush said that there had not been an outbreak in the United States or the rest of the world, but stressed that health officials must be ready.

"A pandemic is a lot like a forest fire," Bush said. "If caught early, it might be extinguished with limited damage; if allowed to smolder undetected, it can grow to an inferno that spreads quickly beyond our ability to control it."
Wow. Remember when there was such a thing as a fiscal conservative? Yeah, me neither. But $7.1Billion?!? How many peopled die from the flu in this country every year? 36,000? 64,000? There seams to be a bit of controversy in that number but even at 64K a year, that over $100,000 per death. And not an accidental death caused by some unforeseen hazard like, oh, I don't know, an IED if Fallujah. We're talking about an $100,000 flu shot? Let's just say for shits and giggles that a flu shot costs $10 to produce and distribute. $7.1 Billion is enough to immunize every man, woman and child in the United States, and half of the entire continent of Africa.



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