West Nile Virus 3

Posted on September 28, 2004 in Scoundrels West Nile Virus

The OC Weekly in its urge to sniff out conspiracy sniffed the wrong dog. Stampeded into a panic about the West Nile Virus turning into a supervirus, they regurgitated the line of a local Republican assemblyman who pointed at the local Health Departments. You’re dropping the ball! he said. You didn’t see the epidemic (of 16 dead in California so far) coming!

I bet you can fill in the next line.

Private industry can do it better!

At least that was the conclusion that the LA Times offered. They spoke of firms which are on the brink of developing new medicines which will help that small percentage who develop truly atrocious symptoms from contact with the virus.

Do you see what I see? Drug companies controlling the supply of medications which can help those who suffer from the worst of West Nile’s effects. The same situation which now plagues AIDS victims — which is a more extensive epidemic so far than WNV. Yes! Yes! We’ll pay the price, any price to have the cure! And up and up it goes. Who will suffer most? Those who find themselves without health insurance for one and all those other victims of our backward-stomping health care system, predominantly the poor and the young.

One wishes that one’s local alternative newspaper would be a check against rampant greed, but in this case, they’ve turned into shills for the first shockwave of another drug-industry propelled offensive against the consumer’s pocketbook.