I’ve read a lot of what Warrens thinks we should do, and it seems.… underwhelming? It seems like a ton of it is “giving people money to mitigate the negative effects of the pandemic” and almost nothing about preventing actual pandemics?
Indeed, she said she was opposed to the US paying more for vaccines, and supported IP expropriation, both of which reduce the incentives to invest in vaccines for next time.
Definitely—she is very much a “when you have a hammer, all problems look like nails” and her hammer is named “trillions of dollars and nice-sounding government agencies.” And moreover, I think her error there is part of a wider issue, where we did see the current pandemic as a nail and tried mightily to hammer it with trillions of dollars and government agencies with Control Diseases in the title. But she doesn’t necessarily understand that the CDC and FDA, rather than “underfunded and therefore unable to combat the pandemic, therefore we can accomplish Pandemic Prep by giving them more money” were actually “highly funded, and used a lot of that money to delay/hinder pandemic response, both extremely early on and to this day.” If GAP is going to persuade her to reform the CDC and FDA so they can fight the (next) pandemic (literally the CDC’s job already), then I’m all for that. But I need to see that before I donate any money.
Indeed, she said she was opposed to the US paying more for vaccines, and supported IP expropriation, both of which reduce the incentives to invest in vaccines for next time.
Definitely—she is very much a “when you have a hammer, all problems look like nails” and her hammer is named “trillions of dollars and nice-sounding government agencies.” And moreover, I think her error there is part of a wider issue, where we did see the current pandemic as a nail and tried mightily to hammer it with trillions of dollars and government agencies with Control Diseases in the title. But she doesn’t necessarily understand that the CDC and FDA, rather than “underfunded and therefore unable to combat the pandemic, therefore we can accomplish Pandemic Prep by giving them more money” were actually “highly funded, and used a lot of that money to delay/hinder pandemic response, both extremely early on and to this day.” If GAP is going to persuade her to reform the CDC and FDA so they can fight the (next) pandemic (literally the CDC’s job already), then I’m all for that. But I need to see that before I donate any money.