Larry Page "providing free flu shots to all San Francisco bay area kids"

https://plus.google.com/+LarryPage/posts/32xY3Z1zckL

by ck2 • 14 years ago

265 231 14 years ago

plus.google.com

ck25• 14 years ago

Let's see, maybe 900k kids, even if it was discounted in bulk to $10, that's $9 million.

If half the kids take advantage of it and it's really $20 in bulk, same $9 million.

GICodeWarrior• 14 years ago

cdc.gov has price lists for the vaccine. Apparently individual doses are around $1 each. You still need someone to administer it, but Target may be providing that.

http://198.246.98.21/vaccines/programs/vfc/awardees/vaccine-... (cdc.gov isn't resolving at the moment)

danielweber5• 14 years ago

Yes, the challenge is not the physical products. It's the labor of getting it to people and administering it.

(I still haven't gotten my free flu shot at CVS because there is always a long line there.)

zoowar• 14 years ago

While this is admirable, public health should be funded by the public through taxes and not the whims of the 1%.

cleverjake• 14 years ago

I dont think anyone is suggesting it should be paid through the 'whims of the 1%'

ck25• 14 years ago

The problem is entire generations of people voting against themselves are going to have to die off before that happens in this country.

Meanwhile at least hundreds of thousands of kids in SF bay area have a chance not to get the flu this year and spread it everywhere thanks to one man's generosity and thoughtfulness.

beagle39• 14 years ago

My parents used to think the same thing. But somehow, newer generations keep voting against their own interests.

The realization that many people are not actually smart enough to figure their own interests came to me about 10 years ago, and the world made a lot more sense since then.

(the late George Carlin reasoned thus: "Think how dumb the average person is; and now realize that half the population is even dumber than that". It's true, if you assume "dumbness" distribution is symmetric around the mean. Or, just replace "average" with median and it's true by definition.)

cglace• 14 years ago

How do you figure the people are voting against themselves? Do you know what their preferences are or what they value?

throwit19792• 14 years ago

So...

Coerced charity is better than actual charity? If I do good deed X at the point of a gun, I am a better person than someone who does it of their own accord? Really?

wilfra• 14 years ago

Yes.

Cushman5• 14 years ago

Any contractual obligation, any transaction, is implicitly backed by the threat of violence. If you believe free enterprise can be more effective than government assistance, you believe "coerced charity" is better.

You got anything better than platitudes?

Shish2k• 14 years ago

Do the people whose lives are saved care?

unalone10• 14 years ago

It's not about being a better person. Charity is not about being a better person. It's about helping people. And the purpose of government is to put systems in place that can give help to all the people who need it, as close to all the time as possible.

Larry Page is a fantastic man for doing this, OP is not disputing that. But it would be nice if children were guaranteed a flu shot regardless of whether a particular fantastic person decides they should get it. Charity is wonderful, but non-broken government is even better.

__alexs2• 14 years ago

No but, free health care is better than charitable health care.

bentruyman2• 14 years ago

Prices also often shoot up. Not to mention unintended consequences. Look at the whole birth control situation. A study of a contraceptive mandate in Hawaii back in 2001 ( http://hawaii.gov/dcca/ins/reports/2001_contraceptive_report... ) increased pregnancies as well as costs to all participating in the plan (even those that didn't want the coverage). I don't discount the good intentions of programs like these, I just think it's naive to think that simply throwing more money at these problems is a scalable solution.

prodigal_erik• 14 years ago

It's bad for society to believe a problem is actually being solved by charity that only happens when you feel like it. That just amplifies our problems during recessions, in which those donations start drying up when they're needed most. It's like building a city behind a dam that won't be strong enough to hold back the next flood.

DigitalJack• 14 years ago

Sadly all the money that could have paid for this went to buying air puffers for the TSA that now sit in a warehouse.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12...

w1ntermute• 14 years ago

There are a lot of things you could pay for if you gutted the TSA. Unfortunately, most people (including many very intelligent and educated individuals) continue to believe in security theater, and the companies that profit off of it know how to keep up the propaganda so the people don't realize they're being duped out of millions of dollars in wasted tax revenue.

driverdan2• 14 years ago

Shame on you for turning an act of charity into a political argument.

pasbesoin• 14 years ago

I disagree. I find it a valid observation of the other side of this situation. And, personally, I did not sign up on HN in order to pat Larry Page on the back.

(However generous and necessary his action was. The other side of this situation is that public society could not manage this basic -- and ultimately, even self-serving, keeping incidents of flu and associated loss of not just well-being but also productivity, for those who view things in dollars and cents -- service for itself.

(See? If it hadn't been for all those ear infections in my infancy, perhaps I could write a coherent sentence. ;-) )

As I reflect upon this, I imagine Page might well be one of the first to agree with this. Perhaps precisely why he made the donation.

So, there too, this story invites the conversation. Why did Page do this? Is there an underlying circumstance perhaps worthy of discussion? I'd say, yes.

P.S. Just to note: I did not vote you down. I'm interested in the conversation this engenders, not in karma/ranking. :-) I don't mean to sound as if I'm bashing you (in case I nonetheless come across this way); I'm interested in perspectives on whether society, through its government, should be capable of and indeed executing such a program for itself.

For my part, I don't think the shots should be forced upon people. (Which has been a problem, at times.) But I think a good, balanced, and truly informative campaign on the topic of vaccinations should be executed, and that for those in hardship, at the least, low or no cost access to vaccinations should be offered. It doesn't just serve them; it serves us all. (Although I'm of somewhat mixed view of the merit of flu vaccinations for the wholesale population, myself.)

king_jester• 14 years ago

It should be noted that charity is very political, so it is not surprising someone would talk about in that context. After all, charity attempts to make up for shortfall in social and political systems and institutions.

jerf• 14 years ago

"public health should be funded by the public through taxes"

But they didn't.

You might want to consider thinking about that for a while. It's actually very, very important.

dbaupp2• 14 years ago

I can't parse your comment, could you clarify?

(Possibly, "They[the public] didn't [fund public health through taxes]"?)

mikeash8• 14 years ago

Why would you even post this comment in this thread?

dfxm12• 14 years ago

One can provide free flu shots, or one can pay for flu shots. Obviously, Larry did one or the other. Otherwise, it would be quite a publicity stunt to claim to be paying for something that was free. :)

ck25• 14 years ago

Point taken, slight title edit. Will probably be changed by mod or automated reversion anyway.

fuzzieozzie2• 14 years ago

If this an experiment? Is it the 1% being magnanimous? Is this that he doesn't want his employees to get the flu?

Nevertheless a nice gesture - though there may be more effective ways to spend the $$$ on the public good.

stuaxo• 14 years ago

This is nice... though with a universal health system it doesn't need to be limited to one city.

ck25• 14 years ago

I suspect all Google employees already have good enough health care to get a free flu shot for their family without this, he's making sure all others do too?

The flu makes society horribly unproductive (and cranky) so it's a public good.

CodeCube• 14 years ago

It would be nice if he's just being magnanimous, but I actually hope it's an experiment ... will there be a notable difference in flu rates in the area as a result of this? will there be any other statistical blips that can be correlated to fewer infections? I'm hoping they're tracking the heck out of this effort :P

ck25• 14 years ago

I vaguely remember Google had a flu tracker last year.

Ah here it is http://www.google.org/flutrends/

You are right, it will be interesting to see if this makes a difference statistically.

Unfortunately their tracker doesn't go down to metro areas, only state.

Oh wait, there are a few cities, here is SF http://www.google.org/flutrends/us/#1014221

munificent• 14 years ago

> Is this that he doesn't want his employees to get the flu?

Google already provides free on-site flu vaccines for Googlers, and vouchers for Googler family members.

Roybatty• 14 years ago

Is it the 1% being magnanimous?

The class warfare rhetoric is B.S.

bitwize• 14 years ago

Blame the Republicans who created the conditions for class warfare in the first place.

derleth5• 14 years ago

A good thing is still a good thing even if it's done for bad reasons.

(Hell, a good thing is a good thing even if it's done for completely insane reasons, too.)

fuzzieozzie2• 14 years ago

HUGE response -- I guess the sarcasm was a little subtle.

Apocryphon• 14 years ago

Unfortunately, all I can think about is how the conspiracy theorists will respond. "Billionaire providing free VACCINES? Google?!? SAN FRANCISCO?!?!"

armenarmen• 14 years ago

Same exact thought haha

tcgv• 14 years ago

If I recall correctly this has already been covered in an episode of The Simpsons. Free vacines are just a means for the government (now Google) to control our minds, Ned Flanders had it all figured out!

dEnigma• 14 years ago

"Simpsons did it!" -General Disarray

livestyle3• 14 years ago

If you think flu shots are good then this is good but if you know the truth about flu shots it's quite scary.

bruceboughton2• 14 years ago

That they make you addicted to AdWords?

cloudwalking• 14 years ago

If you think vaccines are bad you need to get a better education.

maratd4• 14 years ago

Actually, you should educate yourself. The overwhelming majority of vaccines are solid and probably one of the most important discoveries mankind has ever made.

The flu "vaccine" however, is at best 50% effective and is frequently 0% effective. Notice how you have to vaccinate every year for it? But not for anything else? Yeah, it's because it's constantly mutating and it's a moving target.

We still haven't figured out how to nail that target. What's worse, you need to go to a doctor to get vaccinated ... guess where the majority of infections occur? The place where many people congregate. Especially sick people.

I'm all for vaccinations, but not if they have to be done on an annual basis and are best-case-scenario 50% effective.

livestyle3• 14 years ago

I apologize for the outburst.. I should have attributed a source to back up my claim.

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/files/80/ccivi%20report.pdf

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20121025/business/7102599...

http://naturalhealthdossier.com/2012/10/the-preventative-mea...

please note I never said "vaccines are bad" = ad hominem

fletchowns3• 14 years ago

Please elaborate.

throwit19792• 14 years ago

The standard conspiracy theory is that flu vaccines give you autism and allow the government to read your thoughts. They also are a grand experiment by the Greys to colonize us by weakening our immune systems. Let me know if I left anything out, OP.

dhlabs• 14 years ago

time for tim cook to step up

drzaiusapelord• 14 years ago

Free $9 lattes to everyone with a Macbook Pro and in the $250,000 or more tax bracket!

No, just kidding, they'll horde it for lawsuits.

calebhc• 14 years ago

I was getting my hopes up... :p

bcx• 14 years ago

I think this makes a ton of business sense. 1) Children are near the top disease spreaders 2) Less sick children means less sick employees 3) Less sick children means less employees spending time with their sick kids 4) Everyone wins!

creativityland• 14 years ago

and add employees required to give their children flu shots.

zem2• 14 years ago

he's doing it personally. out of his own money. out of a desire to do his bit not to have flu spread around. why would you even be speculating on whether this makes "business sense"?

derleth5• 14 years ago

> why would you even be speculating on whether this makes "business sense"?

Why not?

Also, it might make it more likely to happen next year if it makes good business sense this year.

tuukkah• 14 years ago

3) Less sick children means less employees spending time with their sick kids

4) Everyone wins!

Everyone except those kids who care less about having a flu sometimes than having a chance of their working parents spending time with them. =/

bti• 14 years ago

Larry Page is destroying families.

elteto3• 14 years ago

That is one of the most idiotic things I have ever read. I hope you are being sarcastic.

prostoalex• 14 years ago

Are you then shorting the shares of the companies whose CEOs do not buy vaccines?

sks2• 14 years ago

This may make good business sense as you point out, but do you think pros and cons for google's business were evaluated before Larry decided to pay for these vaccines? I think in absence of any evidence, we should give him the benefit of doubt and look at this as a genuine act of charity.

aarondf• 14 years ago

I'm kind of amazed that a story like this can _still_ elicit negative responses here. Maybe the gov't should provide this, maybe not. Either way: it doesn't right now, but Larry Page just did. I think that is pretty cool. Bravo.

mikeash8• 14 years ago

It's pretty crazy. This is a mildly interesting story about an act of charity by a person who got wealthy in tech, that's it.

vectorbunny4• 14 years ago

I applaud the practical impact of this act, however I do not view it as charity. Acts of charity are anonymous. Charitable donations made in a highly public manner are publicity.

FuzzyDunlop• 14 years ago

It would be entirely the other way round if Larry Page announced a startup dedicated to giving children flu-jabs.

bensw• 14 years ago

I'm glad Larry has finally answered definitively how to end parentheticals with smilies.

gsibble• 14 years ago

Free for children? Shame that Apple's factory workers don't live in San Francisco. ZING!

mvleming• 14 years ago

I think this is a nice gesture by a public figure. I don't think this is something to take seriously as an approach to a long-term goal, but instead as something to be inspired by. Thanks Larry Page. :)

nsxwolf• 14 years ago

Note to self: If I ever become rich and decide to donate something to a bunch of kids... don't let HN find out...

tonecluster3• 14 years ago

New rule: don't hire anyone who's posted abject idiocy in a comment thread on HN :/

unalone10• 14 years ago

Oh, don't say that. Better for people to say stupid things and be debated over them and evolve their opinions than for people to politely say nothing at all and remain fools forever.

Hacker News was a wonderful place for college-age unalone to work out his thoughts and stances with people who like telling each other how wrong they are about everything. I've said some very dumb things under this account name, and I don't regret saying any of them.

Evbn5• 14 years ago

This is one of the stated purposed of HN. To let YC applicants have an extended group interview.

jarcoal• 14 years ago

I feel like the Slashdot and /r/technology crowd have infected this place. So much negativity it's shocking.

unalone10• 14 years ago

Negativity's to be expected when any controversial issue's brought up, and this is certainly a controversial issue on a number of fronts. The people-spending-lots-of-money front, the how-should-we-make-people-less-sick front, the are-corporations-taking-over-our-lives front... all sorts of things that're bound to raise hackles.

The nature of all three sites you brought up, this one and Reddit and Slashdot, make the problem a bit worse by throwing voting and ranking into the mix. When people feel their opinion is being publicly valued, they become more defensive about their opinions and thoughts. The tyranny of the majority means that any thread will display the most popular opinion first, and therefore there's a valuation occurring in every conversation here that can be bothersome when you're in the minority.

That's not entirely the cause – sites with threaded discussions also have frequent arguments over controversy. But there are methods of encouraging positivity in online discussions, they're just not ones built into HN, and the system that is built-in favors more contentious back-and-forths.

elteto3• 14 years ago

I really can't understand the idiocy and hatred spewed by some people on this post. I really hope that is just a very vocal minority that comes out to the light on these kind of posts.

thechangster• 14 years ago

Larry Page, major germaphobe, disinfects entire Bay Area.

iterationx2• 14 years ago

"if we do a really great job on new vaccines... we could lower [world population] by 10 or 15 percent" - Bill Gates

DanBC2• 14 years ago

"First we've got population. Now, the world today has 6.8 billion people. That's headed up to about nine billion. Now, if we do a really great on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent, but there we see an increase of about 1.3."

illuminate2• 14 years ago

"..."

You don't say! (He certainly didn't.)

dude3• 14 years ago

Props and this is a great thing. But it shouldn't erase all the morally bad things Google is actively doing. It's like a Dictator giving candy to the kids for the cameras while still actively oppressing people behind the scenes. There does happen to be a huge FTC case (that will be probably dropped) and a possible DOJ case against Google right now.

knowaveragejoe2• 14 years ago

Ladies and gentlemen, start your conspiracy engines.

kyllo• 14 years ago

Are the kids required to present proof of Google+ activity first?

joey_muller• 14 years ago

Haha. Exactly what I was thinking. I am sure there's a "Vaccinated by Larry Group on Google+" group coming soon.

stevewilhelm• 14 years ago

Glad to see him following the Gates' lead.

hermannj3143• 14 years ago

Buy a kid a $10 flu shot, vaccinate him for a year. Teach a kid to buy his own $10 flu shot, vaccinate him for a lifetime.

tomkarlo2• 14 years ago

Yay, child labor.

tokenadult• 14 years ago

The previous submission of Larry Page's Google+ post

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4874293

led me to his post, where I commented, and where I was APPALLED to see how many people were making blatantly unscientific statements about vaccines, with one even saying, "Just google it" (without providing any links) to introduce flat-wrong statements. A follow-up comment of mine was,

"+Larry Page I'm wondering if your head hurts as much as mine does when people say 'Just Google it' to recommend websites full of incorrect information not based on science or rational thought. More work still needs to be done in developing the public's research skills so that most people can distinguish reliable sources from unreliable sources that happen to turn up in an online search. "

Ouch. I guess the co-founder of Google is seeing an example in the comments to his Google+ post of how ignorant people stay ignorant even when they use the world's best search engine. I wonder what the search quality team at Google can do about issues like this.

yuhong• 14 years ago

Sometimes it is as simple as confusing different kinds, such as H1N1 vs normal flu vaccines.

mcmatterson2• 14 years ago

The nobility / motivation for this act aside, I can't believe this is still even a thing.

Honestly, I find it incredible that there's even debate about this. Nobody thinks twice about things like transportation infrastructure or monetary policy being publicly administered, but the second health care is involved, all sense seems to go out the window. How someone can think that health is less of an inalienable right than access to roads or free markets is beyond me.

baddox• 14 years ago

> Nobody thinks twice about things like transportation infrastructure or monetary policy being publicly administered

You're right. I only think once about it, and I think it's a bad idea.

hermannj3143• 14 years ago

Imagine if everyone were required to sign up for a food/water plan to make sure they and their children would be covered for all of their food related needs. Employers would be required to pay a percentage of food plans premiums for all full-time employees. And if you don't buy a food plan you will be fined $700 annually by the Federal government.

The benefit is that you could never be denied basic access to food/water for the rest of your life. Of course, the government would decide what sort of food each food plan offers and how much grocers can charge for food.

I mean, food is just as much an inalienable right as health, right? So all sense would go out the window if you don't agree with this?

mahyarm• 14 years ago

The main difference in this case, you can get other people sick with your contagious illness.

dreamdu5t2• 14 years ago

Shhh... we don't talk about progressivism's lack of logical consistency. You might spook the sheep.

salem• 14 years ago

Well, actually a big chunk of your taxes is going to farm subsidies, and you wouldn't be 70% corn if it wasn't.

alex-g• 14 years ago

Many countries, including the USA, do have such programs. The American version is food stamps, paid for out of general taxation and distributed to millions of people in low-income households. It's not as all-encompassing as your suggestion, but then neither is government involvement in healthcare.

chris_wot3• 14 years ago

Ha. In Australia, 9% of our annual wage is contributed to superannuation. It makes a lot of sense. We also have a Medicare levy of 1.5%. It's not a bad thing.

zizee3• 14 years ago

Well, a modern wealthy nation should never let it's citizens starve / go without clean driking water. So yes, the government should provide a safety net for those who can't afford food / water.

The same should be done for healthcare. The problem with healthcare is that you can spend a near infinite amount on treatments. It is hard to spend an infinite amount on food.

johngalt• 14 years ago

The government builds roads, but doesn't provide individuals with a car, or liability insurance.

Evbn5• 14 years ago

Different. Flu vaccines prevent flu. Liability insurance doesn't prevent damages.

nicholassmith• 14 years ago

Well done to Larry Page, doesn't matter if its a PR (which I doubt) situation, he's directly improving the quality of life for a large group. Kudos to him. Flu seems trivial but often ends up distinctly not in kids.

k-mcgrady• 14 years ago

The amount of negativity and even in anger in the HN comments here is amazing. A successful entrepreneur uses some of his money to provide children with vaccines - how can people respond badly to that?

afterburner• 14 years ago

Flu shots aren't free in the US? I suppose I should have guessed.

kyro2• 14 years ago

This is ridiculous. Why doesn't he spend more of his time and money building Google's customer service? Has everyone suddenly forgotten the Google Apps story from yesterday? They presumably stopped giving out free accounts to maximize profits, and yet this imbecile is going around burning his cash on preventing the spread of influenza and other diseases.

Your self-driving vehicles are the future, Larry. Why would you invest in helping more people survive when we'll actually end up leading less of them because of all the driver/cab jobs you'll be eliminating?

kyro2• 14 years ago

This is a joke.

jrockway• 14 years ago

I found it amusing.

photorized• 14 years ago

As someone said here, best charity is anonymous. Meanwhile, Brin is in the news for scooping up properties and renting them out "to the needy". I remember the press Page and Brin were getting 5 or 6 years ago for helping out a filmmaker... to the tune of 200 or 250k. Many people I know do more, and more often, without any kind of public praise.

This kind of publicity should really cost more. And if you truly care about helping people, make an anonymous donation, instead of milking it for all its worth.

microkernel• 14 years ago

Interesting Meta-Analysis of the Cochrane Collaboration: http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD004879/vaccines-for-preventi...

Larry Page "providing free flu shots to all San Francisco bay area kids"

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