The Swine Flu Vaccine Screw-up

Optimism as a Public Health Problem
By Barbara Ehrenreich

If you can't find any swine flu vaccine for your kids, it won't be for a lack of positive thinking. In fact, the whole flu snafu is being blamed on "undue optimism" on the part of both the Obama administration and Big Pharma.

Optimism is supposed to be good for our health. According to the academic "positive psychologists," as well as legions of unlicensed life coaches and inspirational speakers, optimism wards off common illnesses, contributes to recovery from cancer, and extends longevity. To its promoters, optimism is practically a miracle vaccine, so essential that we need to start inoculating Americans with it in the public schools -- in the form of "optimism training."

But optimism turns out to be less than salubrious when it comes to public health. In July, the federal government promised to have 160 million doses of H1N1 vaccine ready for distribution by the end of October. Instead, only 28 million doses are now ready to go, and optimism is the obvious culprit. "Road to Flu Vaccine Shortfall, Paved With Undue Optimism," was the headline of a front page article in the October 26th New York Times. In the conventional spin, the vaccine shortage is now "threatening to undermine public confidence in government." If the federal government couldn't get this right, the pundits are already asking, how can we trust it with health reform?

But let's stop a minute and also ask: Who really screwed up here -- the government or private pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and three others that had agreed to manufacture and deliver the vaccine by late fall? Last spring and summer, those companies gleefully gobbled up $2 billion worth of government contracts for vaccine production, promising to have every American, or at least every American child and pregnant woman, supplied with vaccine before trick-or-treating season began.

According to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the government was misled by these companies, which failed to report manufacturing delays as they arose. Her department, she says, was "relying on the manufacturers to give us their numbers, and as soon as we got numbers we put them out to the public. It does appear now that those numbers were overly rosy."

If, in fact, there's a political parable here, it's about Big Government's sweetly trusting reliance on Big Business to safeguard the public health: Let the private insurance companies manage health financing; let profit-making hospital chains deliver health care; let Big Pharma provide safe and affordable medications. As it happens, though, all these entities have a priority that regularly overrides the public's health, and that is, of course, profit -- which has led insurance companies to function as "death panels," excluding those who might ever need care, and for-profit hospitals to turn away the indigent, the pregnant, and the uninsured.

As for Big Pharma, the truth is that they're just not all that into vaccines, traditionally preferring to manufacture drugs for such plagues as erectile dysfunction, social anxiety, and restless leg syndrome. Vaccines can be tricky and less than maximally profitable to manufacture. They go out of style with every microbial mutation, and usually it's the government, rather than cunning direct-to-consumer commercials, that determines who gets them. So it should have been no surprise that Big Pharma approached the H1N1 problem ploddingly, using a 50-year old technology involving the production of the virus in chicken eggs, a method long since abandoned by China and the European Union.

Chicken eggs are fine for omelets, but they have quickly proved to be a poor growth medium for the viral "seed" strain used to make H1N1 vaccine. There are alternative "cell culture" methods that could produce the vaccine much faster, but in complete defiance of the conventional wisdom that private enterprise is always more innovative and resourceful than government, Big Pharma did not demand that they be made available for this year's swine flu epidemic. Just for the record, those alternative methods have been developed with government funding, which is also the source of almost all our basic knowledge of viruses.

So, thanks to the drug companies, optimism has been about as effective in warding off H1N1 as amulets or fairy dust. Both the government and Big Pharma were indeed overly optimistic about the latter's ability to supply the vaccine, leaving those of us who are involved in the care of small children with little to rely on but hope -- hope that the epidemic will fade out on its own, hope that our loved ones have the luck to survive it.

And contrary to the claims of the positive psychologists, optimism itself is neither an elixir, nor a life-saving vaccine. Recent studies show that optimism -- or positive feelings -- do not affect recovery from a variety of cancers, including those of the breast, lungs, neck, and throat. Furthermore, the evidence that optimism prolongs life has turned out to be shaky at best: one study of nuns frequently cited as proof positive of optimism's healthful effects turned out, in fact, only to show that nuns who wrote more eloquently about their vows in their early twenties tended to outlive those whose written statements were clunkier.

Are we ready to abandon faith-based medicine of both the individual and public health variety? Faith in private enterprise and the market has now left us open to a swine flu epidemic; faith alone -- in the form of optimism or hope -- does not kill viruses or cancer cells. On the public health front, we need to socialize vaccine manufacture as well as its distribution. Then, if the supply falls short, we can always impeach the president. On the individual front, there's always soap and water.

To listen to the TomDispatch audio interview with Ehrenreich that accompanies this piece, click here.

Copyright 2009 Barbara Ehrenreich

Comments

[Kevin Carson]

"Who really screwed up here -- the government or private pharmaceutical companies..."

I don't think there's much difference. I've worked for both the government and evil corporations over the years, and find they're prone to chronic clusterfucks because they're all run by exactly the same kinds of mindless bureaucrats.

Giant corporations and government agencies span the whole range of possibilities from A to B. How 'bout adding a little Ivan Illich or Paul Goodman to the mix?

[ZachJ]

I don't understand.

Ms. Ehrenreich states that we need to socialize vaccine manufacture and distribution. Isn't this what we have already done??!! Right now the vaccines are going to the entitled elite (Corporations received vaccines before Hospitals and General Practitioners) and not the citizens themselves. There is no proof, of course, but I would not be surprised if every member of our governmental junta in D.C. is already immunized.

Ms. Ehrenrich is right about American optimism; the general public is sitting around being optimistic, waiting for the vaccine... and getting sick in the mean time.

While she is wrong in her solution. The answer is not more government. This would just create more opportunity for corruption with more self-interested puppets controling our society.

[twitter.com/dailyrev]

BE, I was wondering if the same connection occurred to you as to me -- I wrote this morning about the appearance of your book and mentioned that the title reminded me of that hilarious song that ends Monty Python's "Life of Brian." I'd see for myself if you mentioned it in the book, but I've been out of work for 9 months and can't afford to buy books!

Anyway, that post and the video of the ending of LoB is here: http://dailyrevolution.net/?p=8160

[Swine Flu]

We are in stage 6 of swine flu now. Its no time think but to act!!

[Ben]

I agree!! We must do SOMETHING!!! Anything, even if it turns out to be counterproductive!!!!!

[hallucinatingsapience]

hallucinatingsapience

[Peppernuts]

Fer crapsake. H1N1 Type A is a mild influenza! You'd think it was an outbreak of Ebolavirus by the way some people are flying into hysterics.

But one thing's for sure: Big Pharma is doing a great job of creating a plague they can then Save The Vulnerable From.

We had this thing last winter. It came on fast, put us in bed, then was surprisingly mild except for the lung stuff, which made us glad we're not smokers and don't live in the city.

This winter we're taking extra good care of our immune systems. Including not getting sucked into the atmosphere of Viral Terrorism At Large (as a local AM radio wingnut called it).

It seems like such an idiotic hysteria in light of the killing rates of cars, cigarettes and pollution.

[Terry Dye]

Yeah, mild. Tell that to the parents who have lost their children to this flu.
Let's just hope we can be optimistic that predictions that the flu will not become the big problem it is feared to be.
Yeah, those vulnerable people are just unlucky. Too bad. Nothing to get worked up about.

[Tim Warneka]

Excellent post, Barbara! You're one of the few people out there writing about the cost of the vaccinations ... and how much Big Pharma is doing (and making).

Keep up the good work!

[Chickensh*tEagle]

Peppernuts: "Big Pharma is doing a great job of creating a plague they can then Save The Vulnerable From."

Apparently you didn't read too closely: vaccines aren't that much of a cash cow for Pharma; they make their big money off drugs to manage chronic conditions that won't be cured very soon, like diabetes, hypertension, various heart problems, and HIV.

You're also not getting the concept of public health. Vaccinating you isn't only to keep you from getting sick, it's to keep you from spreading the disease to others who may be more vulnerable. Not to mention that even if you're right about H1N1 not being so bad, we're still poorly prepared for another pandemic like that of 1918.

[liberalamerican]

I am surprised you completely left our one important dimension of swine flu--race. The details can be found online in various studies and one blog post.

[MM]

Folks wake up. How about reading the insert of the H1N1 or any other vaccine. Dr. Roby Mitchell has retracted his position on the H1N1 vaccine after reading the insert on the television show "Know the Cause". In short, the insert from the vaccine states:

- Not proven to have any effect on H1N1
- No studies to determine impact on fetus
- No studies to determine effects of H1N1 vaccine with seasonal
- Can cause neurological disorder
- Contains dangerous squalene and mercury
- Can cause fertility issues
The list goes on and on. Big pharm will make their money on the long term health implications of taking these worthless shots - therapeutic levels of C,D and cleanliness, while keeping the immune system in high order is the key to warding off illnes.

[Nancy Inotowok]

I don't get it. In this story I hear greed and incompetence, and another case of government acting half-assed because they don't believe government should ever run anything.

But I don't hear any optimism. To me, optimism is the belief that citizens working together change change this and make it better. This story says to me that we need more optimism and not less.

[Irene Grumman]

How is it the government has to accept what the companies do? They were supposed to provide updates and didn't. They did not meet goals, and now you say they didn't even use appropriate methods. All the money government has is taxpayer money. Are the contracts actually written with absolutely no consequences for failure to fulfill them?

[Jane]

Thank you very much. Socialism is a joke? We are already there. Only the wealthy can afford to receive the best of care. Insurance already dictates when to do what test and how often the Doctor can prescribe what test or drug the Doctor can prescribe, many do not realize that the studies of new prescriptions are on humans now for sake of our animal rites. So when you take a new drug you are charged and in the study without knowing till later the consequences. Pharmaceutical companies own the politicians and the physicians. I am sick to death to hear senior citizens say but they will cut Medicare to pay for the new healthcare reform. DAH, is Medicare not broke? Or was until we borrowed money to keep it going? Medicare operates on borrowed money. America is broke. We already operate on borrowed money. The media plays fear to Americans about the deficit…like the average American knows what a Trillion dollars will buy? I am a realist, not a pessimist.

[su deposu]

Thank you very much. Socialism is a joke? We are already there. Only the wealthy can afford to receive the best of care. Insurance already dictates when to do what test and how often the Doctor can prescribe what test or drug the Doctor can prescribe, many do not realize that the studies of new prescriptions are on humans now for sake of our animal rites. So when you take a new drug you are charged and in the study without knowing till later the consequences. Pharmaceutical companies own the politicians and the physicians. I am sick to death to hear senior citizens say but they will cut Medicare to pay for the new healthcare reform. DAH, is Medicare not broke? Or was until we borrowed money to keep it going? Medicare operates on borrowed money. America is broke. We already operate on borrowed money. The media plays fear to Americans about the deficit…like the average American knows what a Trillion dollars will buy? I am a realist, not a pessimist.

[Arturo Skandha]

Barbara, I read a great article you wrote rejecting the current load of hogwash that passes for nutritional thinking (anti-fat, anti-cholesterol). I am surprised to hear you repeating the party line that vaccines help make us safe...Another case of night=day that I seem to wake up to every day. Simply put, vaccines are dangerous, and ineffective "as fairy dust" for anything but boosting Big Pharma's bottom line. Thank God that they have failed to manufacture enough of this poison! And that the fake H1N1 hysteria has failed to take root! (no thanks to you.) But I love your stuff generally. We're all slowly extracting ourselves from a Matrix of complex lies, and people who have a big megaphone often find themselves embarrassed in public like this.

[Tom Corson-Knowles]

The swine flu vaccine has caused so many horrible side effects like dystonia, Guillain-Barré and more. Avoid the swine flu vaccine if at all possible!

http://healthandwellnessnewsnow.blogspot.com/

[Don Salmon]

Barbara has claimed that her Ph.D. in cell biology gives her sufficient knowledge to criticize the idea our thinking can have a positive effect on the immune system. Actually, since she got her doctorate in 1968 (in biology, not psychology), this would not qualify her to say anything definitive about the relationship between the central nervous system (i.e. thinking) and the immune system. Until 1972, it was almost dogma in the field of biology (and specifically, among immunologists) that there was a kind of impenetrable barrier between the mind and the immune system. The first indication that this wall was not so impenetrable came in 1972 with Dr. Robert Ader’s accidental discovery that conditioning affected the immune system. In the nearly 4 decades since Ader’s discovery, a whole field, psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), has developed, showing that in fact our attitudes (positive and negative) can have a clearly measurable effect on the immune system. One of the best – and most rigorously scientific – accounts of this field is Dr. Esther Sternberg’s, “The Balance Within”. If Barbara had simply said there is no evidence that the simplistic process of “positive thinking” – mindlessly repeating positive statements, for example – can affect the immune system, no researcher in the field of PNI would object. To my knowledge, none of these researchers have claimed a positive outcome for such a simplistic process. However, there have been, hundreds of studies showing that a change in attitude can “positively” affect – that is, strengthen – the immune system. These studies have been conducted by first rate scientists and many have been replicated.

[J.C. Samuelson]

It's good to see someone casting a critical eye on some aspects of positive thinking as it is often expressed. And, to a degree it's understandable that given the author's experiences that she might have a greater propensity for knee-jerk reactions to terms like "optimism." It's unfortunate, however, that she's so bitter.

I'm willing to grant that optimism for its own sake is a bad idea, but that doesn't mean optimism is to be avoided. Furthermore, I don't recall ever reading any article by any reputable professional in the cognitive sciences (to include psychology) suggesting that optimism is a prescription for healing cancer or any other disease. That it doesn't is hardly a revelation, or a reason to avoid it.

Friendship doesn't heal cancer either, but should we therefore avoid that too?

[J.C. Samuelson]

I stand corrected on one point - the pervasiveness of the positive thinking "movement."

It's enough to give a person sugar cramps.

[gbl]

I think the screw-up rests with governments and WHO, both of whom were bought by H1N1 vaccine pharma.

The most recent former head of the CDC who blithely committed a couple of nations and millions of dollars to a vaccine that has never had randomized controlled trials (therefore, we don't know if works) has been rewarded for her efforts by Merck.

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/12/mercks-new-vacc.html

[gbl]

Well Don, let's have the cite for that study done by first rate scientists. Make sure we get the names, because I'm going to do a search on which pharma picked up the tab for their work.

I suspect these studies are the ones used to back prescribing of antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds.

And possible too, send people running to yoga classes?
(yogaforthemindandhe3artDOT
com
The link that highlights on Don's name.)

[Chicago liposuction]

Well, I agree that attempts must be made towards eradication of this dreadful disease. Fir the H1N1 vaccine screw-up, I solely hold WHO responsible because it was the one who broached the topic of need for a vaccine to the governments.

[orjin]

I think the screw-up rests with governments and WHO, both of whom were bought by H1N1 vaccine pharma.

The most recent former head of the CDC who blithely committed a couple of nations and millions of dollars to a vaccine that has never had randomized controlled trials (therefore, we don't know if works) has been rewarded for her efforts by Merck.

[nick]

GBL: here are a couple free articles, not sponsored by pharma companies, reviewing the science which ehrenreich pretends does not exist.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2568977/?tool=pubmed

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2590632/?tool=pubmed

and literally hundreds more (1123 hits on pubmed for "psychoneuroimmunology," though i'm sure much of that, as with most modern reductionist science, is faulty) but i don't have the time to dig through and select articles which will not be read anyhow.