Global Health Policy
Lives lost as vaccine programs face delays
January 03, 2006
Would a Cancer Vaccine Pay?
There is an interesting discussion at EconLog about the economics of vaccines. This follows a suggestion that some firms might not want to develop a vaccine for diseases such as Cancer, malaria & AIDS because it is more profitable to sell drugs than cure or prevent the disease with vaccines.
Arnold Kling reaches the same conclusion as the Working Group on Making Markets for Vaccines:
I had lunch with Tim Harford last week, and he pointed out that the problem with vaccines is that they are so valuable that governments cannot resist taking them. It is safer to develop something like Viagra, whose patent the government is unlikely to violate, than a cure for AIDS, because the latter is likely to be appropriated by government.