Washington Post on Tamiflu

Anne Applebaum in today's Washington Post:

... dislike of the pharmaceutical industry has been a major obstacle to Congress's efforts to persuade American companies to start making vaccines. Companies need incentives to do the research; or guarantees that someone will buy their finished vaccines; or protection from lawsuits by users of vaccines that will not have been widely tested; or some combination of the above. The Senate's subcommittee on bioterrorism has recently written a sensible bill proposing that the government pay for the research in the early phases of pharmaceutical innovation, much as the government pays for the research in the early phases of warship innovation. It makes sense -- but ask yourself if, deep down, you can bear the thought of Merck or Pfizer collecting a single cent of your tax dollars, and then you'll understand the depth of the problem.