Ferrablog

Bush has always had a problem with intel (both his own and that provided to him), but now he has a problem with Intel. More specifically, Andy Grove, Intel's CEO and tech titan. To paraphrase James Carville, it's the flu shots, stupid:

“The flu vaccine — this is where I get rabid,” Grove says in his deep, rumbling voice.

He blames the Bush administration for a colossal bungle. As nearly everyone now knows, the country relied on just two suppliers for flu vaccine, Chiron and Aventis Pasteur. This month, British authorities impounded the 48 million doses Chiron made in its Liverpool, England, factory, saying they are contaminated.

That's left the USA with a severe shortage and ignited a flu vaccine craze. People are desperately joining queues in ways not seen since Tickle Me Elmo first went on sale. Michigan and four other states have issued emergency orders carrying penalties of up to six months in jail for health officials who give a flu shot to anyone not considered a high-risk priority.

.....

But, actually, without vaccinations the flu would contribute to 51,000 deaths a year in the USA, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Sept. 11 attacks killed 3,030.

And here's what gets Grove, author of the management book Only the Paranoid Survive, to his boiling point. When it comes to bioterror or epidemics, “You look to government to protect you from that, and the government looks to the science and technology infrastructure,” Grove says. “And this government can't even prevent an ordinary failure of the business market for causing probably more American deaths than terrorism. It is a manifestation of a government that has no appreciation for science and technology.”

Grove goes on to hit Bush on stem cell reasearch and his general aversion to scientific concerns.

Kerry may have a winning trifecta of issues in the last days of the campaign - the flu vaccine issue, the possible military draft, and Bush's expensive plan to partially privatize Social Security. Is Kerry demagoging a bit on these issues? Sure. But no more so (and cumulatively less so) than Bush and Cheney have demagoged issue after issue, mostly relating to the fear of terrorism. It's no time for unilateral disarmament in the political wars, and while I'd prefer for there to be serious, sober debate on the issues, it ain't happening now (and probably won't in my lifetime).