Let’s say, hypothetically, that a recent pandemic killed more than seven million people around the world, and that many more people would have died except that an effective vaccine was quickly developed and distributed, thanks to the efforts and cooperation of many brilliant people.
Now let’s say, again hypothetically, that a creepy conman is elected to lead one of the world’s largest democracies, and that conman then proceeds to appoint an even more creepy guy as his Secretary of Health and Human Services.
If that second creepy guy institutes a policy to withhold support for continued development of the effective vaccine, then the next pandemic might end up killing a lot more than seven million people. So here is my question:
When that second pandemic hits, one of those two creepy guys has just committed mass murder. But which one?
Is it the creepy guy who squashed the effective vaccine, or the creepy guy who hired the other creepy guy, knowing full well that he might do something this awful? Which one of them has the blood of millions of fellow humans on their hands?