This SARS thing is getting way out of control. So far, 14 Canadians have died and scores of others have been infected, including now a batch of hospital workers who were taking precautions:
SARS has killed a 14th Canadian and infected a new cluster of Toronto hospital workers even though they were protected from head-to-toe in gowns, gloves, masks and eye shields.
[ . . . ]
“We were using what both Health Canada and the (Atlanta-based) Centers for Disease Control consider to be maximal precautions for these patients,” she said, adding it’s possible some potentially infected staff was not present at the intubations.
That raises serious questions about how the virus was spread and whether the current precautions are enough to protect health care workers.
The medical community has called for Canada to spend the $100 million necessary to research and develop a vaccine against SARS, without delay:
“I would say it would be (Prime Minister Jean) Chretien’s best legacy if he would ante up the development money that may be needed for that,” Patrick said, adding that top medical officials across the country were issuing the same appeal.
According to news reports, voices of the federal opposition, as well as Ontario premier Ernie Eves, have joined in the call. But apparently, the government is dragging its heels at approving the money.
And that really makes me wonder about our priorities. I mean, what are our tax dollars for, if not for cases like these?
Keeping in mind that about 576 people are expected to die from smog in Ontario this year.
Also keeping in mind that all the cancer treatments that have been postponed due to SARS hysteria will kill off hundreds of people over the next 5 years.
There is nothing to fear but fear itself… I forget where that quote is from, but it applies.
There is nothing to fear but fear itself . . .
Except for the people who’ve died, you mean.
If the medical community needs funding to research and develop a vaccine against a deadly disease, then I happen to think it’s a good use of our tax dollars. Feel free to disagree.
Heh, I wish I knew how you put that line in italics 🙂
“Except for the people who’ve died, you mean.”
Segacs, I expect more out of you than that. Taking an argument and using an appeal to emotion rather than a logical construct is something I would expect from the extreme left wingers or SPHR types. There is a risk/benefit analysis that must be taken when we evaluate costs in our society.
Take the $100 million, and you have some choices to make. You can avoid another 10 deaths with SARS, you can save 100 deaths by cutting smog, you can save 1000 people by giving them cardiac defribillators, or you can save 10,000 people by giving kids breakfast in school with that money and making them run every morning.
Normal pneumonia has a higher fatality rate (and incidence) than SARS. Ditto for the flu. Spend the money combatting those 2 diseases and you will help many many more people. The media has hyped SARS to a fascinating extent, and I am sure that media-types will be using this as a case history for decades to come, but when push comes to shove… SARS doesn’t even crack the top 100 list of things that will kill Canadians this year.
A separate point:
A couple of years ago, we were discussing vaccinations. A given vaccine saves 100 people out of every million that gets the shot, but kills 1 in a million.
The question was, should you get the shot? The obvious answer was of course to take it, you would think. Some guy then pops up and says, “well, for the one person in a million, it was a bad decision”.
No! It was still a good decision. It may not have worked out well, but it was still the best move to make.
How does this relate to SARS? If I personally had SARS, I would want the governemnt to spend $100 billion on it, hell, bankrupt the economy, just cure me! Ditto for any other disease… Alzheimers runs in my family, I would definately support the government dumping all other medical research and focusing only on Alzheimers. You can’t make decisions based on individual cases, you have to look at society.
Somewhere along the line, some rational person has to realize that if we spend $100 million to save 10 people, then that is costing us $10 million per life… it isn’t worth it. Especially when in trying to fight SARS we kill off hundreds of people who did not get appropriate treatment while the hospitals were shut down.
I don’t think you can apply a straight cost/benefit analysis for the issue of whether to allocate health care moneys to SARS or diabetes or smog abatement. Infectious diseases tend to ( or at least have the potential to) spread rapidly to widening numbers of people and thus the benefits may be far greater than implied by your “10 SARS deaths” remark. If you could promise me that SARS will only kill 10 people year after year, I would agree with you that its not much of an issue but thats a pretty panglossian pose to strike. And I havent even mentioned the economic impacts of SARS. The impeact to Toronto’s business community is probably greater than $100 million already.