Trade offs

One of the central lessons of economics is that there are no solutions. There are only trade offs.

Tough US import controls on biological materials, introduced after the September 11 2001 attacks, hindered the rapid identification of the H1N1 virus because samples from infected Mexican patients had to be sent to Canada for analysis instead of the US.

Health officials said the detour highlighted how bureaucratic attempts to protect the US from terrorist attacks had backfired.

How true that is.