Bloomberg Businessweek (August 2025)

Год выпуска: August, 2025

Автор: Bloomberg Businessweek

Жанр: Бизнес

Издательство: «Bloomberg Businessweek»

Формат: PDF (журнал на английском языке)

Качество: OCR

Количество страниц: 100

A More Sickly Economy

For generations, parents everywhere recoiled at the sight of red blotchy spots on their child’s face. Although kids are prone to all sorts of weird rashes, the most feared ones were accompanied by a high fever; a dry, hacking cough; red, watery eyes; and small lesions inside the cheeks. Over the next several days, the rash would inch its way down the body, eventually reaching the feet. The measles virus is incredibly contagious, and in the worst cases it can require hospitalization, cause permanent disabilities and sometimes result in death.

Another group also worried about measles: employers. Companies lose days of productivity when workers take off to care for sick children. Besides saving lives, this was another reason it was smart for the US government to help fund the development of an inoculation and why President John F. Kennedy signed a law expanding access to childhood vaccinations. In the decade after the measles shot arrived in 1963, the number of cases was cut in half, and according to the US surgeon general, the direct health-related savings during that time were at least $1 billion annually, adjusted for inflation. That number doesn’t account for productivity loss from overtaxed parents or the unspeakable tragedy of deceased children who could’ve grown up and contributed to society.

Before widespread vaccinations, rich countries were poorer countries, with citizens who were sicker, less productive and more likely to die younger. Promoting vaccine use isn’t merely an ethical or public-health issue; it’s good economic policy. “Vaccines are one of the most cost-effective solutions in public health,” says Sachiko Ozawa, an associate professor at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

After decades of gains, the developed world is going backward. In upper-middle-income and high-income countries, vaccination rates over the past decade have essentially plateaued or are declining, and more people are dying from preventable diseases, according to a study published last year in the journal Vaccine. In England the National Health Service reported that childhood coverage in 2024 had fallen by every measure, with several reaching their lowest levels since 2010. By contrast, countries supported by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, a public-private partnership that funds health efforts in poor economies, have improved coverage substantially and averted millions of deaths.

The stakes in poor countries are higher, because more people will die. But in the dispassionate calculus of pure economics, the costs of declining vaccination rates in places such as Canada, the UK and the US are exorbitant. A 2019 measles outbreak in Clark County, Washington, cost $47,000 per person infected, according to a 2021 study in the journal Pediatrics. Most of the financial burden fell on the health-care system, but the next largest cost was to productivity. The toll would’ve been much greater if anyone had died—as two did in a measles outbreak this year in West Texas. The US set a dark milestone in July, when the number of cases so far in 2025 reached the highest level of any year since 1992.

Even though the rate of return is good, wealthy governments are growing weary of investments in preventive care and in some cases are adding fuel to the sort of misinformation that stokes vaccine skepticism. In June the UK sharply reduced its contribution to Gavi, and US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine critic, said America would stop funding it entirely—part of government-wide cost cuts championed by Elon Musk (page 32) that disproportionately targeted foreign aid.

At home, a Kennedy-appointed immunization panel within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention withdrew support for inoculations containing mercury, used in about 5% of all flu shots to prevent bacteria, citing debunked concerns about the preservative’s safety. And restrictions on federal data imposed by President Donald Trump’s administration are making it tougher for the health-care industry to track infectious diseases and prepare for outbreaks (page 11).

With vaccination rates declining, other sicknesses loom as both significant public-health and economic disasters. In the US and many other parts of the world, the flu last season was among the most contagious and pernicious strains in at least a decade, and expectations for the next one beginning in the fall are grim. Experts are also worried about dwindling immunization rates against whooping cough, says Bryan Patenaude, an associate professor of health economics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. (The school is supported by Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg Businessweek’s parent, Bloomberg LP.)

It all adds up to a public-health policy that’s not just bad on its merits but also astonishingly at odds with efforts to accelerate growth and solve problems such as the mounting national debt. Rich countries can afford to absorb some higher costs to care for sicker populations, but another Covid-scale pandemic or a severe strain of flu could critically injure their economies, Patenaude says. “A lot of it comes down to opportunity cost,” he says. “Prevention is often a lot cheaper than treatment.”

Remarks

• Vaccines keep economies healthy too

In Context

• Government data tools are going dark because of DOGE
• Sperm banks bring the freezing process home
• South Korean stocks are hotter than BTS right now
• High coffee prices are grounds for more theft in Brazil
• A return of cannabis curbs puts Thai farmers in a bind
• Venture capital struggles with investment in Chinese AI
• A Walk With: Raquel Urtasun of Waabi driverless trucks

In View

• Trump’s NATO bashing fuels Europe’s defense industry
• First jobs, especially in tech, are harder to find
• Homes without running water are also a city problem
• Elon Inc.’s biggest threat may be Musk himself
• Hims & Hers battles to sell weight-loss drugs

Trade War

• The “Tariff Man” disrupts companies worldwide
• Customs brokers are left calculating the bill
• A factory boom needs workers, and they need training
• Products seen on Shark Tank encounter rough seas
• South India welcomes companies fleeing tariffs
• Examine your zipper, and consider its supply chain

Pursuits

• Jewelry Special: 100 years of art deco influence
• Gem designers make an old style new again
• Luxury hotel pop-ups are the ultimate vacation flex
• Where do chefs go to learn new skills? YouTube
• How CEOs avoid restless nights
• The best cooler is essentially a portable fridge
• Designing car key fobs is surprisingly complex
• In Alien: Earth, the real monster is capitalism
• What to watch, read and listen to in August

Exit Strategy

• Picture this: You solving all 11 of these word puzzles

скачать журнал: Bloomberg Businessweek (August 2025)