Brendan Nyhan: — Subium • Bluesky web client

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 1 mo

That is not that expensive. What you would save in productivity and healthcare cost would easily cover those $24 billion

Match it to the Pentagon's yearly "We only asked for X but Republicans gave us X + Y dollars" budget roundup meeting and pay for it that way Win/Win

Pentagon "cure every disease in the name of military readiness" program 2024

It's not like they haven't had the same idea bsky.app/profile/cdbr...

Yup. They were also working on a COVID nasal vaccine that could work against ALL forms of the SARS virus. www.defenseone.com/technology/2...

US Army Creates Single Vaccine Against All COVID & SARS Variants, Researchers Saywww.defenseone.com Within weeks, Walter Reed researchers expect to announce that human trials show success against Omicron—and even future strains.

It is a win/win, indeed!

Ah, but that would require long-term planning, and there's never a politics that rewards such things.

it's wild because to me, announcing that you're going to spend barely any money to have pre-emptive vaccines for that many viruses seems like it *should* be a political win. and yet in the real world somehow people believe it's not.

That’s just NASA’s budget top line for a single year. We lose roughly that much money annually on EITC according to the last Improper Payments Act report. This is insanely affordable yet we just keep doubling down on stupid.

But who can we KILL with these vaccines?

$24 billion is less than half of Elon’s outlandish proposed Tesla pay package.

But how many armored trucks could the police buy with that much money instead?

Testing them for efficacy seems like a bit of a sticky problem, doesn't it?

We could do a GoFundMe if the government declines. That’s like couch cushion money for DOD.

bsky.app/profile/torr...

“US funding bodies will tighten rules around research that could make viruses more dangerous. “Gain-of-function” research, making pathogens more harmful or transmissible, can help scientists assess those pathogens’ risk and develop treatments and vaccines.” www.nature.com/articles/d41...

US funders to tighten oversight of controversial ‘gain-of-function’ researchwww.nature.com New policy on high-risk biology studies aims to address criticism that previous rules were too vague. New policy on high-risk biology studies aims to address criticism that previous rules were too vag...

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