Health care and economic growth

PLEASE do not ask how my algorithm delivered this news.

Still, apparently, embalmers are finding that “tough, white, rubbery, fibrous masses resembling strips of calamari … are turning up in body after body across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.”

According to this news source, these fibrous entities emerged after the COVID pandemic and subsequent vaccine rollout.

Citing research published in the International Journal of Innovative Research in Medical Science by a retired U.S. Army officer, the news presenter weaves a horror story of an unsuspecting public being duped into accepting harmful vaccines. The YouTube video I viewed is just one example of the anti-vaccination lobby’s toolkit.

Setting aside the allegation of dark forces suppressing the truth, common to conspiracy theories, the “academic” source of the report, namely the International Journal of Innovative Research in Medical Science, is well established as a fraud and is known to be a “predatory journal.”

In a predatory journal, you pay to get published, peer review is lax and the time between submission of an article and its publication is almost instantaneous, once payment clears. This journal is number 1,359 out of a list of 2,780 journals identified as fraudulent by an organization of volunteer researchers.

The modern anti-vaccine movement has had serious consequences, as the prevalence of preventable diseases continues to roil North America. The New England Journal of Medicine (not a predatory journal) just issued an analysis of measles hospitalizations in Utah between 2025 and 2026, which have been the highest in 40 years. Of the 602 reported cases in the state, 49 were hospitalized, and of these, 44 (90 per cent) were unvaccinated.

These facts demonstrate the efficacy rate for the measles vaccine. A few of the vaccinated do contract the disease. The measles vaccine is among the most efficacious and usually confers lifelong protection.

Despite this, vaccine hesitancy in Canada is growing, as recent surveys by Leger and other pollsters have discovered. Trust seems to be waning fastest for the mRNA vaccines developed to address COVID and opponents of vaccines have been particularly vocal in their criticism of what they see as a new and unproven technology used to fast-track the COVID vaccines.

Yet recent progress in cancer vaccines is startling. In the U.S., while female cancer rates have shown modest declines (and remain slightly less than male cancer rates), the cancer rate for men has shown a steep decline since 1990. The Canadian data show the same trend. Improved early diagnostics, reduction in smoking and ever-better treatments are responsible.

Just to be clear, a growing and aging population still means that the total number or prevalence of cancer cases continues to rise. Each year, more Canadians die from cancer, so it remains a formidable health problem.

Future cancer treatments will feature novel vaccines based on mRNA technology and other approaches that target specific genetic mutations in the disease and the patient.

Ben Sasse, the former Republican senator from Nebraska, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December 2025, has experienced prolonged survival attributed to the new experimental drug daraxonrasib. The first widespread anti-cancer vaccine against the human papillomavirus has sharply reduced the incidence of cervical cancer in women and head and neck cancers in men. Vaccines genetically designed for the patient have extended the lifespans of glioblastoma patients.

Given the capacity of cancer diagnoses to strike fear in people, genetically based vaccine therapies for cancer may be accepted. However, the more urgent question is whether Manitobans will be able to benefit from these new technologies. Here, the prognosis is guarded.

All governments in Canada confront a challenging health-care system for three core reasons. First, the aging population and the coming surge in demand will strain all aspects of health care, from the management of age-related diseases to the home-care network.

Second, new leading-edge therapies are costly. Genetically-tuned vaccines, currently in the experimental stage, are expensive to bring into common use. Medical professionals can also advocate for cutting-edge treatments and technologies. Each year, it seems, a medical specialist threatens to leave unless the government invests in some advanced technology, ostensibly so they can offer patients better treatment … the extra pay earned in U.S. dollars is only a minor factor, of course.

Naturally, Manitobans like to believe we have state-of-the-art medicine and politicians, at least those forming the government, will always assert that. Realistically, we know otherwise but still cling to the belief that while Manitoba’s health-care system has some problems, things “are not that bad.”

However, reality tells a different story. On diagnostic performance such as MRI and CT wait times, Manitoba is the worst in the country. Life expectancy is below the average compared to other provinces. Emergency room wait times are notoriously slow. Surgical wait times are increasing. On measures such as primary care access, Manitoba is slightly better than other provinces, but Canadian performance lags behind other peer countries.

The third and most important factor impeding Manitoba’s health care is the deep malaise of the Canadian economy, which has flatlined for the past seven or eight years. For Manitoba, things are worse. If the sum of the parts (the provinces) equals the whole (Canada), Manitoba’s GDP growth (a basic measure of national/regional wealth) lags behind other provinces. Furthermore, one-third of our provincial government budget comes from the federal government.

Just as Manitoba trails in infrastructure (roads and sewers), so too do we lag in health-care infrastructure and staffing. The critical barrier in adopting both cutting-edge health care and expanding home care is the stagnant economy.

When growth slows, the tax base contracts and government capacity to finance change stalls. To enhance health care, government must focus on economic growth.

Manitobans must also accept a pro-growth agenda, and that is the real challenge.

Can we relinquish the need to satisfy all interests to accept a growth agenda? I am not arguing against poverty mitigation, environmental protection or support for the arts. Let’s make economic growth the priority.

Gregory Mason is an associate professor of economics at the University of Manitoba.