The more lifesaving drugs that get funded the better God forbid you have to rely on anything not funded here Sell your house or the wife dies Not much of a choice
My socialist tendencies tell me that the profit motive is not necessarily the ideal way to achieve the best outcomes in medicine. Do drug companies co-operate with each other at all, or all they each spending massive R&D sums individually in search of the big prize, and consequently charging fortunes to recover their outlay? Wouldn't it be better if there was multi-national governmental co-operation in this direction?
We cooperate with each other all the time, while simultaneously competing. The legal side is interesting. We co develop and co market products on the basis of complementary skill sets. Virtually none of the products I have worked on over the last 20 years have been developed solely in house. By default we also fund a lot of academic research and made hundreds of multi millionaire researchers as a result. They discover something in a university lab, a venture capitalist helps them set up a company to commercialise what they have found, a big company comes in and buys the start up if what they have is any good. Bingo. Give me an example of multi national governmental cooperation that has worked in making things of genuine use for citizens of many countries and I will listen closely. I know of two examples, one of which you really won’t like and the other was great but only for the ultra elite. But I agree in principle that the profit motive is not ideal in directing research and spending where it is needed - diseases where there are few or no treatment options - in favour of where there are big populations to be treated. Also it goes in cycles. In the 90s mental health was the big thing, loads of new drugs. Since then it’s been diabetes, autoimmune diseases (two areas which are already flooded with products) and oncology. Lots of things virtually ignored. Something for Alzheimer’s is the holy grail at the moment, but we seem a long way off. I think I have been too deep in the forest for too long to figure out a different way of doing this, avoiding all the perverse incentives while not transferring all of the risks onto the taxpayer. Lack of imagination. I think the challenge of the scenario I posted above is that, on an individual basis, we would all fund the treatment, and would for everyone. But on a population basis, with competing priorities within and beyond healthcare for public funding, it becomes much more complicated.
I can't necessarily think of any examples of multi-national governmental cooperation working to great effect, but that doesn't mean it can't work, and I think that greater effort needs to be made in that direction - action on climate change being the obvious example. I suppose it doesn't help when the US elects someone like Trump, though. I'm intrigued to know what your examples are. I think we touched on this before, but if the profit motive directs research towards treatments useful to large populations, why have there been no new antibiotics developed for decades?
Because there are tiny margins on antibiotics, single use short duration treatments. I think there might also be something to do with the science on this. A new one was licensed last year, but it’s not a new class. I suspect all the low hanging fruit was picked decades ago. Vaccines are the most cost effective and beneficial medicines and a lot of work goes on in that area. Governments worked well on Concorde, but not many of us benefitted from that bit of beautiful engineering. They are of course excellent in cooperating in things like developing new fighters and bombers for their airforces, although the projects seem to suffer lots of delays, cost overruns and other issues. If we could get meaningful international cooperation on climate change I would be a happy man. Seems to me setting a global per capita cap on carbon emissions is the fairest way to do it. We are very proud of our efforts in the UK, but we are still high polluters on a per capita basis (though better than many other developed countries) and we dodge a lot of counting by importing gas and oil. A per capita cap would mean some places, like the US and Germany, would actually have to do something while allowing less developed nations headroom to continue developing. It irritates me to hear some western politicians moaning on about China and India being big carbon polluters, when this is purely a matter of scale, because they have big populations. India in particular has tiny per capita emissions.
There we are then, tiny margins. I understood that the need for new antibiotics was ever more pressing, with strains of bacteria becoming immune to what is currently available. If there's insufficient profit motive for the private sector, governments should get together to fund the necessary research. We have NATO setting targets for 'defence' spending after all. Why not target 1% of GDP on medical research? On climate change, the International community should be seeking ways to stop Brazil destroying the rain forest, for example. This could be done by the carrot of subsidies, or the stick of sanctions.
So Corbyn has finally seen sense and Labour will back a new referendum and campaign for Remain, if it happens. Hurrah.
I've been caught up in this **** today - block of flats I'm working on is right opposite the crime scene.... Finsbury Park shooting and stabbing: One man knifed in Seven Sisters Road, another shot near Blackstock Road PUBLISHED: 06:46 09 July 2019 | UPDATED:12:36 09 July 2019 Lucas Cumiskey Police were called to reports of gunshots in Seven Sisters Road. Picture: @999london One man was shot and another was stabbed in the Finsbury Park area last night. please log in to view this image Police were called to reports of gunshots in Seven Sisters Road. Picture: @999london Police were called at about 21:45pm to reports of gunshots heard on Seven Sisters Road. Armed police found a 30-year-old man suffering from a stab wound at the scene. The London Ambulance Service (LAS) took him to hospital, where his injuries are described as not life-threatening. A Scotland Yard spokesperson said a second man, believed to be in his late 20s was found nearby, close to Blackstock Road, suffering from a gunshot wound. He is also in hospital where he remains in a stable condition with injuries that are also not believed to be life-threatening. please log in to view this image Police were called to reports of gunshots in Seven Sisters Road. Picture: @999london No arrests have been made. A Pc at the cordon this morning told the Gazette: "There's police in the park so I'm guessing that it happened in the park then spilled out into the street." One neighbour said she saw the man who was shot being treated in Finsbury Park Road. "He had run to Finsbury Park Road after he was shot and he was being attended to by emergency services," she said. "He seemed conscious. He was siting up. The guy said he had been shot in Finsbury Park and ran to Finsbury Park Road. "There was a big quick police presence. The crew had come from Tower Hamlets. They said they had been deployed to Finsbury Park because of gang violence." She added: "I think there was a vigil here for the motorcyclist who got killed and I heard there was some fighting in Blackstock Road." A Section 60 order was granted to police in the Finsbury Park and Seven Sisters Road area following the incidents. Rather than needing reasonable grounds for suspicion to be able to carry out stop and searches, a Section 60 - which is authorised by a senior officer - means police can stop and search anyone. Another neighbour, Adam Ray, 35, said he heard "shouting and screaming". He said: "I couldn't make anything particular out but people were definitely shouting and screaming. I would say I'm shocked but a fellow got stabbed down by KFC recently." Another man, who lives in Fonthill Road, said he could hear screaming and saw "loads of people running". Seven Sisters Road was shut both ways either side of Blackstock Road this morning. The 30-year-old stab victim was found near where a motorcyclist died after he collided with a car last Wednesday. Anyone with information is asked to contact police via 101 quoting reference Cad 8974/8Jul or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 11.
Comrade Jezzbollah Corbynski couldn’t see sense if you smacked him in the face with it, the man is an arse of a politician, nothing more than a champagne socialist, and has finally destroyed the Liebour party because of his own ineptitude and all powerful desire to become PM and turn us into the european version of Venezuela.
The sooner Corbyn hands over the reigns then the sooner Labour can have a realistic chance of ousting Mohamed 'erm um well um erm ' Johnson as his great grandfather wanted him to be named.
Silly ****s have abandoned their voters from the north, workers and left wingers. Hopefully it’ll mean the reforming of more far left parties, such as TUSC, who are against the EU and the rich bosses that profit from it.
The general public really do only see the tip of the iceberg and while the murders and shootings make headlines (sometimes), the stabbing incidents that seem to be happening daily don’t even make the local news. On a similar note, special shout out to the absolute ****s who decided it was great fun to throw bricks at passing ambulances in my patch last night. Meant we had to avoid the area completely and the sick in that area were delayed in getting treatment. Sometimes I really despair of this world.
The myth that all labour voters in the north voted leave is not borne out by analysis of the voting demographic, also the reality of what leaving actually means , has shown that many who voted leave as a protest now realize it will result in the threat of them losing their jobs. The 'rich bosses' who benefit from the EU you refer to exist in every country it is just crass to assume all rich people support remain.For example have a chat with Rupert Murdoch or the owners of the Telegraph who stand to make huge amounts of money ffom Brexit and therefore ensure their newspaper campaigns for it. Just simply , can someone on here please say how this country gains economically from leaving? If we don't how is it possibly a good thing?
