Mercury And Autism-Part Two

About the recent controversy concerning the use of Mercury in childhood vaccinations, there is another aspect that is equally troubling, though as of yet it hasn't been addressed. This might, incidentally, explain why a good many liberal advocates have been wary of jumping on the bandwagon. What happens if this results in a massive lawsuit, on the scale of the tobacco industry controversy, or worse. A class action lawsuit, especially, could easily result in a settlement in the area of hundreds of billions of dollars, closing in on a trillion dollars or more. The question to be considered in this case is, who will pay for it?

Obviously, the price will be passed on to the consumer, especially the American consumer. What happens then? This could definitely put a damper on health care initiatives. It could, in fact, make them all but dead in the water, for a great amount of time, way into the foreseeable future, and beyond. The way the current health care initiative recently passed by the Bush administration is going, it is all ready expected to cost more than 700 billion dollars, far more than the roughly 200 billion it was initially estimated that it would cost.

Nevertheless, something will have to be done to address this. Especially since it looks as though this is not just an American problem, but a worldwide one, as American pharmaceutical companies have exacerbated the situation by deluging Third World nations with these vaccines, the populations of which are for the most part ill-equipped, if at all, of coping with the expense and inherent other problems of a widespread autism epidemic. And that is what it could amount to, in a sense, an epidemic. This is serious, as it could easily undermine our foreign policy efforts in all areas. It would be hard to explain the benefits of democracy and capitalism to nations who have suffered the adverse effects of a capitalistic system that has poisoned generations of Third World citizens, and of a political system that has allowed it to continue unchecked.

It could be that the pharmaceutical industry to a large degree might become bankrupted, and be forced to sell out in order to meet any potential judgments accrued in a class action or other type lawsuits. It is unlikely that the industry would be nationalized, though that might be the best and most efficient way of solving the health care crisis that could occur in the wake of this. One thing is certain, something will have to be done, something that will not condemn the American people to suffer from increased prescription drug costs. Something that will still make it possible to initiate broad based and comprehensive health care reforms. And finally, something that will insure that something like this will never happen again.