The rush for innovation?

Today I was working in my office when Morgan came in and said "I've got Chicken Pox" and showed off her spots. All of this even after the doctors and the school system forced us to deal with the Chicken Pox vaccine. What the hell is the point? The scientists claim that it is 85% effective. In the short history that I've known folks that have had the vaccine, most of them have ended up getting the Chicken Pox. Yet we get into this you must have it, we have to eradicate another disease that affects children. Is this going to be the same thing with the new Cervical cancer vaccine? We get so much hype about the new wonder drugs and with the companies trying to maximize the return on investment, one has to wonder if our study groups are long enough. What recourse does one have on a failure of an immunization like this?

On another innovation front, yesterday Motorola was pushing a new cable technology that could boost speeds up to 160 mb/s (megabits per second) over standard coaxial lines. This is a nice technology to see, but it will be years before anyone is ready to roll it out. Cable companies and telco's who run DSL have mini-monopolies in most communities and they have no reason to upgrade their systems. When they do, they charge through the roof for it because there is no competition to keep prices low. In my area you can get a cable modem with a highest speed of 3 mb/s or you can do like we did and get 6mb/s DSL. With the merger of AT&T and BellSouth earlier this year we were hoping that this might lead to some new updates, but local rules that create these mini-monopolies are in place to keep this new innovation out.

It just gets frustrating.