this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2025
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Europe

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[–] boreengreen@lemm.ee 41 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Just don't spend it on american manufactured weapons.

[–] kameecoding@lemmy.world 13 points 3 days ago

No way they do that when Belgium, Germany, Czechia, Austria and France all do weapons manufacturing

[–] Gsus4@programming.dev 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Yea, who knows how long those will work before the trump sells out every single secret or sides with his "powerful dictator" buddies.

[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 23 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Couldn't they use it instead to repair their public health systems that are probably (like everyone else) hurt badly from Covid instead?

[–] albert180@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

We should do some reforms there too. Drug costs make up a huge proportion of health spending. Usually more than what is spend on outpatient treatment and doctors salaries. Negotiating for all EU Citizens could lower drug prices considerably

[–] Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

We should also produce then INSIDE THE EU!

Elvanse and many others are made in China. Thats why there often is a huge shortage, because of shipping

It would certainly make sense for the WHO Essential Medicines. But I guess not for every drug. We still want trade, just not with unreliable partners like the US.

Also the drug shortages are caused by the Health Insurances negotiating to hard for generic drugs.

Usually they tender out all prescriptions for a specific substance from their insured population. And the lowest bidder takes them all.

This leads to the situation where there is only one company left which makes the actual substance (and a few who market it under different names).

You should at least let a couple companies win with different supply chains, or make a requirement to produce domestically or in friendly countries

[–] dasgewisseextra@sh.itjust.works 19 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Hey I’ve seen this before!

[–] B0rax@feddit.org 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

They tried to do it in germany. They got sued by the opposition.

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Couldn’t we also use some of it to fund badly neglected care and research for the > 1 million europeans disabled by long COVID!

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Do you have a source for that number?

It seems a little to high, 1 million people facing disability for long covid within Europe.

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

1 million is probably an understatement. But I think one million is about right for people who experience significant disability from long COVID.

Older data but europe based: https://www.who.int/europe/news-room/13-09-2022-at-least-17-million-people-in-the-who-european-region-experienced-long-covid-in-the-first-two-years-of-the-pandemic--millions-may-have-to-live-with-it-for-years-to-come

Newer data but worldwide: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39830235/

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah, I know about prevalence of long covid. I suffered it myself. But most common symptom is reduced ability to smell. And, while annoying, it's not a disability. At least I don't think you can file for disabilities on any european country due to that symptom.

Many people had had and may still have symptoms from long covid. But one thing is having the illness and other, very different, is that the illness is so serious that it causes a disability on the person.

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

That’s actually not the case. For example this recent study actually found loss of taste and smell to be the least common long covid symptom they asked about. (no doubt to the fact that usually gets better within a couple months, while the other types of long COVID are often chronic).

Source: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.27.24317656v1.supplementary-material

Loss of taste and smell is a common short term symptom lingering a couple months after the infections. But long COVID commonly causes chronic lifelong illnesses like ME/CFS and POTS that don’t resolve with time, so their symptoms end up being more common.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Paper you linked does not support your statement. As it's a paper on people on treatment for long covid.

People whose long covid symptom is just reduced sense of smell would not seek treatment.

I'm still highly skeptical of the "1 million disabled people by long covid in Europe" statement. There should be a clear statistic. As people who have been declared disabled are well counted here.

It may be true. It just seems really high numbers to me.

[–] geography082@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago

In Spain a lot of the provided founds for COVID help where stolen. There is no solution in war. There is no solution for human beings at this point. It's all about power and strategy. A long time ago. We are just waiting for shit get serious and then I hope fucking humans do things right.