So, over at Espresso Pundit today, we have this article:
Behind Every Shortage is a Government Agency Trying to Make You Safer His article points to a shortage of chemo drugs in America hospital and blames...
Well, guess who Greg Patterson blames for the shortage? Drug manufacturers who concern themselves more with making designer drugs for RLS and impotence rather than life-saving medications? An out-of-control insurance industry that puts profits over people? Natural variances in supply of the drug's building blocks?
Of course not.
"Teva reopened a California plant that it had shut down voluntarily for about a year, in part to retool to meet Food and Drug Administration manufacturing guidelines."
Oh man, those guv'mint beureaucrats in Warshington, they just don't care about you and me. "Naturally, the drugs have to be made according to very strict safety standards...wouldn't want the pills to have too much color variation or contain any Red Dye Number Two...."HAW HAW HAW. Red Dye Number Two! Next thing you know, they'll be trying to make sure no spotted owl feathers get into the chemo! They're just so out of touch with real Americans like you and me. Also, Buck Ofama.
Well, except it's not something like that at all:
"The Irvine plant first faced difficulties back in 2009, when Teva recalled more than 57,000 bottles of injectable propofol after 41 reports of patients falling ill with flu-like symptoms. Some of the recalled vials of the sedative were found to be contaminated with endotoxin bacteria, which resulted in several lawsuits being filed over the drug."
Whoops. That's pretty serious. Those of us who have watched our loved ones go through chemo know just how much it sucks, and how any malady, even one ever so slight, can send them over the bend to a week of retching, shivering, awfulness.
And of course, if you're looking for someone to blame, always go with your usual suspects. For an Objectivist like Greg Patterson, the villain will always, ALWAYS be the government. Business can do no wrong, and especially no evil.
But there are hints.
The company, Teva, on a quick Google search, closed plants in Puerto Rico and Florida before they temporarily shutdown their Irvine plant (2006 and 2009) respectively. Now, I don't know what those plants made, but if I'm going to wildly speculate on why there aren't enough chemo drugs floating around, I could use that to suggest that maybe Teva was artifically creating a supply shortage. But our benevolent, Objectivist Galtian overlords - they would never do that, right? Right?
There are bad choices in everything we do. Choices like: "Do I pay his large tax bill, or do I go to Federal Prison?" or "Do I get a root canal or live in constant agony from this toothache?" (hat tip to Tom Tomorrow). And sometimes, yes, let's say the Irvine Teva plant *did* made chemo drugs. Does the government have to make a choice between limiting supply or letting contaminated medicine into the supply? Yes. It is a shitty choice, but it has to be made (and hey, maybe if businesses were actually self-regulating, we wouldn't have contaminated drugs out there in the first place).
Objectivists believe that cake can be had and eaten, and when this is proven to be untrue, they throw a tantrum that affects us all, because they want to make their supremely stupid fucking ideas law of the land.
Coda: Espresso Pundit has been on a tear about the Arizona Medical Marijuana law that recently passed (Spoiler Alert: He's against it). He cares so much about chemo drugs and personal choice... So much so he's willing to let contaminated sedatives out into the supply. But marijuana? Then he's all about Big Daddy government spanking you for stepping out of line.
Someone might want to comment about the hypocrisy of that position. And it looks like I just did.