Well, this is a bright shining day for medicine

[conuly]

Due to advances in the field, we can now add syringes to the list of ongoing shortages.

Everybody who had that on their bingo card, please let us know in the comments.

Comments

[hashiveinu]

It's been on my radar since I heard about Cuba's vaccination campaign - because of the embargo, they didn't have enough, and some people/organizations in other countries sent them some.

(I understand the reason for single-use plastic items in medicine, but I also worry about its lack of sustainability.)

[conuly]

Plastic for things where other options are honestly not viable wouldn't be such a problem if we didn't use it for all the stuff we don't need to use it for.

[hilarita]

Yes - we should stop using plastic for pretty much everything other than the medical uses, thus ensuring the supply for medical applications, and moving everything else to something that doesn't depend on fossil fuels. Maybe we'll get to the point where we can sensibly manufacture plastics that don't require the fossil fuels, and don't have the allergy problems of some of the plastic replacements (e.g. bioplastics), but until we do, we should prioritise the life-saving applications over the nice-to-haves.

[mindstalk]

The vast majority of oil gets burned to push vehicles (mostly cars) around faster, to heat things, or (outside the US) to make electricity. Making stuff includes asphalt, and I think actual plastics are like 5% of US oil. Getting off plastic is more urgent for waste (oceans, microplastic) reasons than for supply reasons.