Catching my eye: morning A through Z

Here’s what’s caught my eye this morning:

  • The controversy on the authenticity of the Zawahiri-Zarqawi letter continues. Point: Abu Aardvark (reserving judgment). Counter-point: Across the Bay (Juan Cole’s critique doesn’t hold water).
  • Was it that slow a news day? Ann Althouse fisks fortune cookies.
  • Coming Anarchy has a picture of military rations from a number of different countries including the United States, Japan, the Netherlands, and China. It’s fascinating. I gather the Chinese are planning to live off the land.
  • John Whitehead of Environmental Economics does a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the effect of opening ANWR to oil development on gas prices.
  • Lawrence Solum of Legal Theory Blog has another installment of his Legal Theory Lexiconl. This time his topic is Utilitarianism.
  • The Manolo Shoe Blog is one year old.
  • Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution posts about something I’ve been thinking about lately: the possible effects of an avian flu pandemic on intellectual property law. His suggestion: incentivize Roche to complete their construction of a U. S. plant quickly. I think a carrot and stick approach might be appropriate: Tyler’s plan plus ensuring that Roche is aware that if they can’t produce enough Tamiflu, we’ll find someone who can. Intellectual property rights aren’t any more a suicide pact than the Constitution from which they derive. Dean Baker of MaxSpeak, posting on the same subject, launches a broadside attack on patent monopolies.

That’s the lot.

2 comments… add one
  • Thanks for the head’s up, Dave. I like your carrot and stick idea, and Dean Baker’s rant blew me away. However, I just don’t know what could make the big companies back down from their position, no matter what the threat or incentive.

    With regard to Tamiflu, the same problem has emerged that did with antibiotics. H5N1 is showing resistance to it in Japan, where if I recall it was used on a large scale to fight ‘ordinary’ flu. The speculation is that inadequate-strength doses, or patients who did not complete the course and/or who skipped doses, gave the flu the chance to muster a defense.

    The good news (if this second speculation pans out) is that in battling Tamiflu, the H5N1 virus mutated to a weaker strain. More tests will be needed before scientists can be sure, but in any case it seems the patients in Japan who took Tamiflu survived the encounter with H5N1, even though they were sick. Although whether this holds true in all cases — not known yet, at least not to my knowledge.

    Anyhow, we’re facing the specter that widescale use of Tamiflu (and any antiviral) could render it ineffective in stopping a pandemic.

    This might be a case of governments (and big transnational corporations) assuming they can get around draconian quarantine planning if they have a magic bullet of antiviral stockpiles.

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