As far as I can tell, the current travel recommendation is that if you visit the Caribbean you should avoid conceiving a child for 2-3 mo (the guidance would also apply to Puerto Rico except I don't think that counts as "abroad"). But surely no one is actually doing that...?
From a libertarian philosophical standpoint I like this, but I'd like to know more practical reasons. Is it just the fact that it's a massive amount of R&D that's only recouped from sales and marketing?
For me, beyond recouping the costs, I think the CDC has demonstrated that it is too tightly coupled with politics [1][2]. I believe that any government body will eventually become constrained by the politics that it exists in and is funded by. I would, naively, claim that funding more neutral researchers/companies would provide better resistance to the politics of it all.
As a counter argument, it would be easy to claim that the pharmaceutical companies are too tightly coupled to politicians. Perhaps this still results in greater efficiency, for now?
It seems like they basically stopped surveillance and left up a snapshot ( https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/zika-travel-information ).
As far as I can tell, the current travel recommendation is that if you visit the Caribbean you should avoid conceiving a child for 2-3 mo (the guidance would also apply to Puerto Rico except I don't think that counts as "abroad"). But surely no one is actually doing that...?
And there now is evidence for widespread teratogenic effects ( https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2101195 ) and we just... Gave up?
Kind of wild.