EclectEcon

With renewed concerns about human-to-human transmission of avian flu, societies are being forced to decide who should receive the limited amounts of tamiflu vaccines that will be available if a pandemic erupts.

• One school of thought extrapolates the present policy about flu vaccines in general — make sure the older people, the weaker and the more vulnerable, receive the vaccine because they are more likely to die from the flu. I.e., discriminate against the young in favour of the old.
• A second school of thought says that the old and the weak are goners, anyway, and so society should use the vaccine only for the young and (otherwise) healthy people who have a better chance of being saved. [see this, thanks to JJ for the link].

Do you notice anything unusual about these two schools of thought?

Neither one recommends any use of the price system to discriminate and determine who should receive the vaccine. I must say, I really doubt that using the price system to allocate tamilflu vaccines to their most highly valued use would be acceptable politically. But I don't understand why it isn't being incorporated somehow.