16 ms·

If COVID taught us anything, the government is going to let these drugs expire useless, incinerate them, refuse to replenish them, and import loads of fakes whe

by dereg 4y ago

If COVID taught us anything, the government is going to let these drugs expire useless, incinerate them, refuse to replenish them, and import loads of fakes when an actual crisis hits. Snark aside, this may not be the case this time around. Relevant snippet: > 2004 Project Bioshield Act and $290 million in Project BioShield designated funding to purchase this supply of the drug. Amgen will maintain this supply in vendor-managed inventory. This approach decreases life-cycle management costs for taxpayers because doses that near expiration can be rotated into the commercial market for rapid use prior to expiry and new doses can be added to the government supply. I'm guessing $290M covers both the cost of the drugs as well as storage for some number of years. Would be nice to know for how long.

parker_mountain 4y ago
> If COVID taught us anything, when an actual crisis hits. To be fair, nuclear crisis is not at all like COVID. It's one of those things that you can kinda see coming on the horizon. It's increasingly unlikely that, aside from a small scale nuclear attack, nuclear war will spring up without tons of advanced warning; for example, in the forms of degenerating relations between nuclear powers, and saber-rattling. Spending money on up-keep for these drugs isn't the best use of funds, and should only be done during periods of high tension. And yes, as a society, our preparation for a COVID-like event was weak (in the US, in no small part due to Trump's efforts to reverse Obama-era preparations).
- dawnerd 4y ago
  Except there are cases where nuclear emergencies do just pop up, take the Sendai earthquake in Japan for instance. Having some of the drugs ready to go seems like a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.
- ghufran_syed 4y ago
  do you think the obama administration depleting the stockpile of N95 masks from 2009-2016 made any difference? see section 3 “The Atrophy of Vigilance in the Strategic National Stockpile” https://ethics.harvard.edu/files/center-for-ethics/files/23pandemicpreparedness.pdf?m=1599224522 https://ethics.harvard.edu/files/center-for-ethics/files/23p...
  - parker_mountain 4y ago
    I suppose I made a mistake in getting political, but there's a difference between atrophying something, and sweeping the whole thing into the trash.
    - chiefalchemist 4y ago
      Negligence vs Incompetence? From leadership? Different means. Same ends. The difference is semantic.
kube-system 4y ago
Shifting priorities upon leadership change is usually the reason for those types of issues. But two party systems have advantages in other ways.
golergka 4y ago
If it would be much better for these drugs to expire useless than to be used.
rad_gruchalski 4y ago
> If COVID taught us anything, the government is going to let these drugs expire useless, incinerate them, refuse to replenish them, and import loads of fakes when an actual crisis hits. That’s a very weird take on this. So what should the government do in your opinion? Launch some nukes preemptively just so people could say “oh, at least we didn’t waste those anti-radiation medicines! we caused nuclear conflict, but who cares, drugs didn’t expire”? Considering that the adversary is shifting their strategic bombers, sent their biggest sub with nuclear torpedoes into the sea, and the nuclear train is on the move towards Ukraine, this sounds like a good idea, no?
- scrollaway 4y ago
  Governments often have a tendency to think of stockpiles as indefinite items without a lifetime. But everything has a lifetime, as any good engineer would know. "Let's stockpile nuclear emergency meds" is a good opportunity to forget about expirations and, 50 years from now, say "we're covered because in 2022 we stockpiled them and nothing happened since". Thankfully, as GP points out, this appears not to be the case... this time. But it did happen with Covid (and not just to the US! Many governments were guilty of this thinking)
  - comradesmith 4y ago
    Yes but that’s not a good argument against buying them now, instead it’s an argument in favour of setting up a replenishment programme for some fraction of the reserve every year after some initial delay.
    - scrollaway 4y ago
      I'm not reading anyone arguing against buying anything now?
  - _visgean 4y ago
    > But it did happen with Covid what do you mean? We did not have stockpiles of drugs because the drugs were not known and it took quite a bit of research to figure out what works and what does not.
yieldcrv 4y ago
Next time your preferred party (whichever one it may be) is looking to cut spending, just remember that everything looks necessary. Then someone gets appointed "to make the tough choices", and we're back at square one.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> If COVID taught us anything, the government is going to let these drugs expire useless, incinerate them, refuse to replenish them, and import loads of fakes when an actual crisis hits. What are you referring to? The US vaccine development, production, and distribution went quite well, all things considered. I remember the loudest complaint being that we weren’t giving away enough of our supply to other countries.
- cwkoss 4y ago
  Tens of thousands of people died at the beginning of the pandemic due to lack of medical and PPE supplies. Nurses were wrapping themselves in garbage bags and searching out construction masks.
  - dereg 4y ago
    Yes, this is what I was talking about. It was an avoidable tragedy.
    - airstrike 4y ago
      That is literally the opposite of what is happening in TFA. If anything, you are arguing we're overpreparing.
      - dereg 4y ago
        I did not miss that in my comment.
        ac2u 4y ago
        Yeah, lots of reactionary blasting of your comment from people who didn't realise your point was that in future, if the stocks aren't used, some smartass politician is going to be "see!?! we didn't need it! why should we replace the expired stuff?" and leave the stocks at a state where the usefulness for an emergency is nil. Unfortunately, there's no incentive when spending taxpayer money for the person who "buys" insurance for tail risk events.
zelon88 4y ago
You quoted the important part. Specifically, this paragraph negates your post. > 2004 Project Bioshield Act and $290 million in Project BioShield designated funding to purchase this supply of the drug. Amgen will maintain this supply in vendor-managed inventory. This approach decreases life-cycle management costs for taxpayers because doses that near expiration can be rotated into the commercial market for rapid use prior to expiry and new doses can be added to the government supply. Read it carefully. Doses that approach expiration will be rotated into the commercial market and replenished with fresh doses. There is very little cost to the supplier in doing that. They get to sell a healthy dose of medication for full retail value and the government always has a fresh, healthy supply. FIFO (First in, first out). Most companies try to reduce the value of the products they have on hand to save in taxes and keep their operation lean. The government is basically stepping in and saying "We will make it worth your while to keep a bunch of this on hand. Just guarantee me X number of fresh doses and we're happy."
- ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
  Yup. Here the government is not really maintaining a stockpile as conventionally imagined, but paying industry to rotate inventory through a buffer which is the size of the desired stockpile. Seems like this strategy would have avoided the 'expired PPE' problem we faced at the beginning of the pandemic.
kyleblarson 4y ago
Until the next batch of Amgen execs needs some more options to exercise for new summer or ski homes.
bushbaba 4y ago
To be fair, California's government required companies to have n95s to deal with wildfire smoke. Those masks were readily available and deployed during covid. It's not always doom and gloom. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/25/apple-and-facebook-face-masks-were-stockpiled-after-wildfires.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/25/apple-and-facebook-face-mask...
phaedrix 4y ago
Drugs in pill form don't really expire, they just lose efficacy. And if stored well it takes a long time. I cant find it right now but someone found some pills that had been stored like 50 years in sealed containers and testing for the activr ingredient showed they were still like 80% or more good.

by dereg 4y ago

parker_mountain 4y ago

> If COVID taught us anything, when an actual crisis hits. To be fair, nuclear crisis is not at all like COVID. It's one of those things that you can kinda see coming on the horizon. It's increasingly unlikely that, aside from a small scale nuclear attack, nuclear war will spring up without tons of advanced warning; for example, in the forms of degenerating relations between nuclear powers, and saber-rattling. Spending money on up-keep for these drugs isn't the best use of funds, and should only be done during periods of high tension. And yes, as a society, our preparation for a COVID-like event was weak (in the US, in no small part due to Trump's efforts to reverse Obama-era preparations).

dawnerd 4y ago
Except there are cases where nuclear emergencies do just pop up, take the Sendai earthquake in Japan for instance. Having some of the drugs ready to go seems like a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things.
ghufran_syed 4y ago
do you think the obama administration depleting the stockpile of N95 masks from 2009-2016 made any difference? see section 3 “The Atrophy of Vigilance in the Strategic National Stockpile” https://ethics.harvard.edu/files/center-for-ethics/files/23pandemicpreparedness.pdf?m=1599224522 https://ethics.harvard.edu/files/center-for-ethics/files/23p...
- parker_mountain 4y ago
  I suppose I made a mistake in getting political, but there's a difference between atrophying something, and sweeping the whole thing into the trash.
  - chiefalchemist 4y ago
    Negligence vs Incompetence? From leadership? Different means. Same ends. The difference is semantic.

kube-system 4y ago

Shifting priorities upon leadership change is usually the reason for those types of issues. But two party systems have advantages in other ways.

golergka 4y ago

If it would be much better for these drugs to expire useless than to be used.

rad_gruchalski 4y ago

> If COVID taught us anything, the government is going to let these drugs expire useless, incinerate them, refuse to replenish them, and import loads of fakes when an actual crisis hits. That’s a very weird take on this. So what should the government do in your opinion? Launch some nukes preemptively just so people could say “oh, at least we didn’t waste those anti-radiation medicines! we caused nuclear conflict, but who cares, drugs didn’t expire”? Considering that the adversary is shifting their strategic bombers, sent their biggest sub with nuclear torpedoes into the sea, and the nuclear train is on the move towards Ukraine, this sounds like a good idea, no?

scrollaway 4y ago
Governments often have a tendency to think of stockpiles as indefinite items without a lifetime. But everything has a lifetime, as any good engineer would know. "Let's stockpile nuclear emergency meds" is a good opportunity to forget about expirations and, 50 years from now, say "we're covered because in 2022 we stockpiled them and nothing happened since". Thankfully, as GP points out, this appears not to be the case... this time. But it did happen with Covid (and not just to the US! Many governments were guilty of this thinking)
- comradesmith 4y ago
  Yes but that’s not a good argument against buying them now, instead it’s an argument in favour of setting up a replenishment programme for some fraction of the reserve every year after some initial delay.
  - scrollaway 4y ago
    I'm not reading anyone arguing against buying anything now?
- _visgean 4y ago
  > But it did happen with Covid what do you mean? We did not have stockpiles of drugs because the drugs were not known and it took quite a bit of research to figure out what works and what does not.

yieldcrv 4y ago

Next time your preferred party (whichever one it may be) is looking to cut spending, just remember that everything looks necessary. Then someone gets appointed "to make the tough choices", and we're back at square one.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> If COVID taught us anything, the government is going to let these drugs expire useless, incinerate them, refuse to replenish them, and import loads of fakes when an actual crisis hits. What are you referring to? The US vaccine development, production, and distribution went quite well, all things considered. I remember the loudest complaint being that we weren’t giving away enough of our supply to other countries.

cwkoss 4y ago
Tens of thousands of people died at the beginning of the pandemic due to lack of medical and PPE supplies. Nurses were wrapping themselves in garbage bags and searching out construction masks.
- dereg 4y ago
  Yes, this is what I was talking about. It was an avoidable tragedy.
  - airstrike 4y ago
    That is literally the opposite of what is happening in TFA. If anything, you are arguing we're overpreparing.
    - dereg 4y ago
      I did not miss that in my comment.
      - ac2u 4y ago
        Yeah, lots of reactionary blasting of your comment from people who didn't realise your point was that in future, if the stocks aren't used, some smartass politician is going to be "see!?! we didn't need it! why should we replace the expired stuff?" and leave the stocks at a state where the usefulness for an emergency is nil. Unfortunately, there's no incentive when spending taxpayer money for the person who "buys" insurance for tail risk events.

zelon88 4y ago

You quoted the important part. Specifically, this paragraph negates your post. > 2004 Project Bioshield Act and $290 million in Project BioShield designated funding to purchase this supply of the drug. Amgen will maintain this supply in vendor-managed inventory. This approach decreases life-cycle management costs for taxpayers because doses that near expiration can be rotated into the commercial market for rapid use prior to expiry and new doses can be added to the government supply. Read it carefully. Doses that approach expiration will be rotated into the commercial market and replenished with fresh doses. There is very little cost to the supplier in doing that. They get to sell a healthy dose of medication for full retail value and the government always has a fresh, healthy supply. FIFO (First in, first out). Most companies try to reduce the value of the products they have on hand to save in taxes and keep their operation lean. The government is basically stepping in and saying "We will make it worth your while to keep a bunch of this on hand. Just guarantee me X number of fresh doses and we're happy."

ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
Yup. Here the government is not really maintaining a stockpile as conventionally imagined, but paying industry to rotate inventory through a buffer which is the size of the desired stockpile. Seems like this strategy would have avoided the 'expired PPE' problem we faced at the beginning of the pandemic.

kyleblarson 4y ago

Until the next batch of Amgen execs needs some more options to exercise for new summer or ski homes.

bushbaba 4y ago

To be fair, California's government required companies to have n95s to deal with wildfire smoke. Those masks were readily available and deployed during covid. It's not always doom and gloom. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/25/apple-and-facebook-face-masks-were-stockpiled-after-wildfires.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/25/apple-and-facebook-face-mask...

phaedrix 4y ago

Drugs in pill form don't really expire, they just lose efficacy. And if stored well it takes a long time. I cant find it right now but someone found some pills that had been stored like 50 years in sealed containers and testing for the activr ingredient showed they were still like 80% or more good.