Recently, some critics of the US government have pointed out that this country is the only advanced industrialized nation without a national vaccine laboratory and suggested that this lack makes the American public more vulnerable than other developed nations to infectious diseases, such as avian flu. A government official said these critics were disloyal and thus wrong about the public's vulnerability. To support his claim, the official cited the generally long life span and low infant mortality of US citizens, relative to all UN member nations. Mentioning the high quality of American hospitals, he added that all of the Europeans that he knew preferred to undergo major medical treatments in the United States rather than in the socialized medical systems in place in their home countries.