Avian Flu: How Anti-Libertarian Could It Get?
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Here's a comment I posted on Dan Drezner's blog regarding the EU response to the confirmation that avian flu has reached its fringes:
It's not just about vaccines and antivirals.
Here's the real question: Are we prepared to tell businesses to relax all their rules regarding absenteeism and tell schools, even bus drivers, not to admit coughing students?
The reason our boring old cold and flu outbreaks get as bad as they get is because we either don't want to, or can't, just stay home when we're sick. Just one guy who's used up all his sick days, or one parent who insists on sticking his sick kid on a school bus, and the pandemic lives on...
Sometimes the biggest threat to libertarian ideals is not an expansive state, but a foolish citizenry.
P.S. Are we also willing to start posting guards in restrooms to make sure people wash their hands? How about crowded subway cars — should police start screening people not just for bombs, but for the sniffles too? Ditto for air travel. How about seizing, via eminent domain, all patents and other intellectual property regarding flu vaccines and flu-prescribed antivirals?
Any thoughts?
It's not just about vaccines and antivirals.
Here's the real question: Are we prepared to tell businesses to relax all their rules regarding absenteeism and tell schools, even bus drivers, not to admit coughing students?
The reason our boring old cold and flu outbreaks get as bad as they get is because we either don't want to, or can't, just stay home when we're sick. Just one guy who's used up all his sick days, or one parent who insists on sticking his sick kid on a school bus, and the pandemic lives on...
Sometimes the biggest threat to libertarian ideals is not an expansive state, but a foolish citizenry.
P.S. Are we also willing to start posting guards in restrooms to make sure people wash their hands? How about crowded subway cars — should police start screening people not just for bombs, but for the sniffles too? Ditto for air travel. How about seizing, via eminent domain, all patents and other intellectual property regarding flu vaccines and flu-prescribed antivirals?
Any thoughts?
Related Posts (on one page):
- Reports of Humanity's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
- Plenty of Tamiflu, Despite Government Panic
- For You It's "Hoarding," For Branson It's "Stockpiling"
- Tamiflu Maker Cutting Off U.S. Purchases
- Wonder Drugs are Now a "Negative Externality"?
- Avian Flu: EU = "Don't Panic," UK = "Panic"
- Calls for Seizing Tamiflu Patent Increasing
- Avian Flu: How Anti-Libertarian Could It Get?
Posted by KipEsquire on
16 October 2005
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