Flu Vaccines

Check on this article on the lack of flu vaccines in America this year. This is what happens when you rely on a tiny number of giant drug companies to provide for you. Something happens at 1 of them and a lot of people are going to die.

We don't usually think of disease as a real threat to us anymore unless it's some extremely rare disease like anthrax or smallpox that could be acquired by terrorists. Or maybe something like SARS that is foreign and weird. But of course diseases like influenza can wipe out hundreds of thousands of people very easily such as in the flu epidemic of 1919. If we only rely on a small number of large drug companies to produce vaccines, another 1919 could happen very easily.

One of the major effects of globalization is the spread of disease around the world extremely quickly. It's really only a matter of time before a major disaster strikes. We already see how the globalization of tree diseases and bugs are wiping out trees across North America. There is almost no way with a global economy that this won't happen to humans at some point.