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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 2781420" data-attributes="member: 177">I know what you mean, but let's be clear for the readers out there - "antibiotics" treat bacterial infections.  If you walk into a drug store and buy an "antibiotic", you won't be arming yourself against a virus.  Besides that big advantage?  You make it sound like that's an advantage that cvan be set aside lightly.  It isn't in the least. Or would you prefer your anti-virals to be made by a non-expert? But, besides that big advantage - if the Government decided to do it, much of that money would have to go into re-inventing the wheel, building up new facilities and infrastructure that Big Pharma already has.  That's wasteful.And, overall, it is a simple matter of efficiency.  As a practical matter, government rarely does something more efficiently than the private sector can.  It is a basic tradeoff - Government is big, and has power it can assert just about anywhere it needs to.  But it is slow to change, clumsy, and inefficient.  The private sector has far less power, but it's faster, more efficient, and more flexible by far.</blockquote>