[Athens]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/condi....ap/index.html

They can afford to spend the money to develop the needed drugs, and recoup costs by pricing to break even giving insurance companies and in the case of Canada Tax payers a break on super large fees for much needed drugs. Also eliminates the "lets just make the drug work enough to cure the symptoms but not the disease theory" to make more profits off a illness.

[ApplCmptrDood]

Isn't this supposed to be in the Political Lounge?

[Athens]

why?

[Railroader]

It is clearly a political discussion when you are discussing anything you think the government should do or when discussing political policy.

OT: Costs would sky rocket due to the bureaucracy inherent in government systems. There would be no incentive to lean down management or other trim-able costs if costs rose too much.

And then to see politicians campaign towards certain special interest groups and offer more research funds directed into drugs that would benefit only those special interest groups. Have a famous well loved young actor dying of liver cancer? A politician would court the public offering to fund more research into medicine to cure liver cancer. No matter how short sighted that research may be, research into more promising areas such as eliminating all cancer might be lost because we are focused in the wrong areas.

[Athens]

whatever, tooki relocate it. I was more interested in talking about the article orginally.

Everything you just said happens now anyways with private companies. I see no difference except that in time of need for things that are not profitable government can get things moving that a private company wouldn't

[wdlove]

The government, we, support all of drug research now.

[SVass]

Basic research is currently financed by the US government directly at NIH and in universities. Product development is paid for by those seeking profits (using the knowledge gained from government work). This is true for all sciences. sam

[kmkkid]

It'd be nice if they spent at least a portion of the millions embezzled each year on a cure for HIV or something equally life saving.

[Athens]

oh the companies will make much more money finding ways to treat HIV with out curing it. Once cured you lose a money making source.

[wdlove]

Originally Posted by kmkkid

It'd be nice if they spent at least a portion of the millions embezzled each year on a cure for HIV or something equally life saving.

Profit is the motivation for research. That is correct if diseases were cured there would be no profit.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Athens

oh the companies will make much more money finding ways to treat HIV with out curing it. Once cured you lose a money making source.

I disagree. I think a cure (or better yet, a vaccine) would be a huge money pot for whomever it is that finds/invents it. It would be the "must have" drug for a huge portion of the world (some parts of Africa have a 50%+ infection rate) and nations would shower the patent owner with money for a long, long time. Probably long enough for the patent to expire, leaving the generic makers with a drug that won't make 'em much money but will be in some demand for decades.

I agree in principle that economics should not be the sole impetus to developing medicines and treatments, but how else would you allocate resources? Remember-the drug companies are almost entirely publicly held, so investors are the ones who say where the money goes... Perhaps there should be some sort of incentive in terms of lower taxes or similar things to get drug companies to concentrate on what "the public" is interested in, but that's just going back to economic incentives.

And if the public drives where drug research goes, then we're all in trouble. Far more women die from lung cancer and heart disease every year than from breast cancer- but where do you think most women's interest is?

[Big Mac]

Why don't all citizens just become government employees? After all, everything the government does is so efficient and economically sound. And government officials are never motivated by greed or corrupted by power, right? That settles it, let us herald in this new utopia. I think I have a name for this grand new system: Socialism.