Not content with whipping up a national frenzy over healthcare challenges faced worldwide, the BBC has found yet another global problem to pin on the government. The corporation is reporting on shortages of cold and flu medicines, leading with the headline “Cold medicine shortage blamed on lack of government planning”. It provides some insight into the prevailing views of BBC newsrooms when the solution to all supply problems is more government planning…

This is without mentioning that painting shortages as a uniquely British problem, arising primarily from a lack of planning, presents an inaccurate and over-simplistic picture of the problems at hand. Despite the BBC’s domestic attribution, such supply problems are far from isolated:

• Germany faces a “dramatic shortage in medicine”, including painkillers, antibiotics and heart medication. DW News even covers a potential free-market solution to the crisis – creating informal local markets for medicine. Guido doubts the BBC would lead with that headline.
• France has passed an immediate ban on the internet sale of “all paracetamol-based painkillers”, with the crisis blamed on a Chinese export ban.
• Canada is facing an “unprecedented” shortage of cold and flu medication. The head of Health Canada called it a “complex global problem”.
• American pharmacies have restricted sales of cold and flu medicines amidst their own shortage.

Yet again, the truth is a hard pill for the BBC to swallow…

Hat-tip: Christopher Snowdon