Drug Lobby Wins Again in Washington...

After spending way too much time googling this, it breaks down this way:

15% of diabetes research funding goes directly to researchers from gov't groups like NIH.
5% comes from non-corporate related donations to non-profits like the American Diabetes Association and Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund.
15% is in corporate donations to those same groups.

The other 65% is direct corporate grants to researchers, internal R&D, and R&D partnerships between corps.

So roughly 80% of all diabetes research is funded either directly or indirectly by Big Pharma.


I was off by 10%.

 

Well it's not like R&D could ever lead to a competetive advantage or anything . . . oh

 

Yup

And now I have a headache.

 

So now the question becomes, what are they researching? Treatments? Well, sure.

Pathology and potential cures? Hmmm.

Took an Icelandic firm to isolate seven new diabetes genes recently. I wonder how many grants they got from U.S. pharma companies...

 

Who makes more revenue on a pack of cigarettes, the government or the tobacco companies?

All in the name of public health the state collects high taxes for every cigarette sold, they extort millions in "damages" form companies producing a legal product. If they are so concerned with our collective health why not outlaw cigarettes?

I guess our glorious benefactors are content with maintaining the status quo as long as they get their cut.

 

I can't find a study on the web, but I have a friend that works at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the Southern Research Institute. Eli Lilly helped fund a study there and they cured Type I Diabetes in lab rats and two humans.

The only downside is the prep regiment has a high probability of killing the patient before they can even administer the stem cells.

 

Lemme guess...you're a smoker, aren't you?

You can look at the tax on cigarettes one of two ways:

(1) Either as a flat sales tax on a consumer purchase

or

(2) As the government saving your money for you

Because there's no reason why I should pay taxes to support your addiction.

And when you end up on an oxygen tank for the last 5-10 years of your life, you'll be eligible for disability payments out of the tax money you've spent buying cigarettes. And the hospital where you go for your emphysema treatments will have gotten government grants out of that same tax income in order to buy new and improved oxygen tanks.

So as a libertarian, you should applaud this.

Or just quit smoking.

 

Meanwhile, in those socialist havens like Canada and the UK, cures are being effected - albeit on a small scale - without killing the patient:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/343/4/230?ck=nck

 

The "Garamet Qualification" never rests does it? I have to be in the service to comment on military matters, and I have to be a smoker to recognize the state's hypocrisy on tobacco?

Again, when did I say I smoked? Admit it, the state has a vested interest in maintaining enough smokers to keep the tobacco companies in business so that they can reap the rewards, all in the name of public health. Otherwise, outlaw the toxic killers before they kill more people.

And actually as a libertarian, I would applaud the state getting out of the healthcare business altogether. But then, statists would lose their justification for all sorts of endeavors aimed at saving us from ourselves, from nanny state smoking regulations, gun control, mandating vaccinations, etc.

So, are you on board, get the government out of healthcare, and then you won't have to spend your tax money to carry my supposed addiction?

 

Yeah, because that worked so well with alcohol...

 

Hey, we're talking about health here. How can you willingly live in a world where the state earns revenue from the sales of known carcinogens that are available at every corner store?

Oh, and there was more to reply to.

In case you missed it.

 

In a world where people are going to engage in addictive behaviors, I would rather those behaviors be taxed in order to pay for the later outcomes of those behaviors than that those behaviors be inhibited outright so that tax revenues go instead toward trying to police those behaviors.

In an ideal world, people would not engage in addictive behaviors. I'm open to any suggestions you have toward achieving that goal.

I'm on board for a government that doesn't prop up any industry - whether it's the airlines, the oil companies or the pharma companies.

You, apparently, are on board for penalizing human beings for getting into accidents, losing their legs in wars, developing schizophrenia, losing their eyesight to macular degeneration, succumbing to any chronic debilitating illness, or in any other way being rendered unable to support themselves throughout their adult lives. Yet apparently you're all for leaving the corporations alone to get their tax breaks and their welfare checks.

Or am I misunderstanding you?

 

From your article:

"[FONT=arial, helvetica]Seven consecutive patients with type 1 diabetes and a history of severe hypoglycemia and metabolic instability underwent islet transplantation in conjunction with a glucocorticoid-free immunosuppressive regimen consisting of sirolimus, tacrolimus, and daclizumab."

Same transplant procedure. The immunospupression is the dangerous prep regime. Almost every adult with Type I diabetes is going to have more chronic problems that could make the transplant overly dangerous.

In short, they transplant different materials, but they do the same prep regime, which is the killer I talked about earlier.
[/FONT]

 

^Nevertheless, a kid with a strong immune system, given a choice between multiple fingersticks and 3-4 shots a day for life, and this regimen, would probably prefer the regimen.

Most new treatments start out brutal and dangerous and are refined over time. As docs get better at this, they'll be able to calibrate dosages better.

And the research gathered from this might eventually help treat type 2 as well.

What ever will the makers of Lantus and Humulin do to earn those 3% dividends then?

 

If the government is not providing healthcare, then people are free to suffer the consequences of their own bad decisions. And you are free to not pay for the consequences of their bad decisions.

Where'd you get that?

You must be misunderstanding me, because I never said those things. You are a fiction writer.

Actually the point of bringing up the governments tobacco policy is to show why some of us doubt the good intentions of those who want the state to be the gatekeepers of public health. Whether it's mandating possibly deadly vaccinations, mandating toxic mercury be brought into our homes, or agricultural policy that makes poor people fat, how can you claim that the government's actions are any more trustworthy or beneficial than the profit motives of big pharmaceutical companies?

At least a company can be sued, unlike the US government, which exposed millions of it's citizens to harmful asbestos, and never compensated a soul for it.

 

I won't disagree with the rest of your post, but that one nitpick bugs me. I do have a little more knowledge about transplants than the average bear. But, from what I understand, the strength of your immune system prior to transplant isn't a good indicator of what the strength of your immune system will be post transplant.

Again, based on what I've been told and overheard, it takes anywhere from 7 to 21 days for your white count to even begin to move and it may never return to it's pre-transplant strength.

But, it does beat the alternative, death.

 

Where did I say that? You're the one writing fiction.

 

Agreed and, again, the more the procedure is done, the more it will be refined.

The real question is, why isn't it being done in the States?

 

So you agree, get the government out of the hospital room, out of the boardroom, and out of the bedroom? No more mandated vaccinations? If you don't trust the state as much as you don't trust private companies, how can you get on board with forcing private citizens to take certain drugs, made by those very companies, no less?

 

Aw, is this gonna be one of those "yer either with me or yer with the terraists" arguments? 'cause I expected better from you.

Baby/bathwater - understand the difference?

Would *you* concur with rolling back the special privileges that the pharma industry gets from the feds? That's all I'm asking for here.

 

So as always, it's not the meddling that you have a problem with. You just want smarter meddlers.

Sure, I've never said otherwise. But by special privileges, does that cover mandating the use of certain products made by the pharma industry?

 

I have no idea where you're getting that from.

If you have some Quixotesque need to prevent your daughter from being immunized against life-threatening disease, there's nothing I can do about it.

And it has nothing to do with the fact that pharma companies are getting special government privileges, with the complete complicity of Congress, Paladin and Listkeeper.

 

Who said I don't want my daughter immunized? Just because I don't believe in forcing others to make certain choices doesn't mean I won't make those choices myself.

 

^Well, then, why throw it in as a sidebar to the conversation? Or is it really that difficult to accept that you and I can occasionally agree on something?

 

Gul, you lying sack of shit, I have never said the reimportation ban should remain in place, and I challenge you to to come up with a post stating otherwise.

For the last time, I unconditionally do not support the reimportation ban. Subsequently, you are deluded if you think that any Congressman is going to risk losing his reelection by successfully putting pressure on Canada to lift their price caps so that prices in both countries rise to more than 25% greater than the price cap levels.

 

^

 

I love the vitriol in this thread, over something that is supported by 95% of Americans. O2C, I have no fucking clue what you support, because you've spent the whole thread calling the rest of us assholes and illetrates. You're a piece of shit if you expect us to sort through that to figure out your position. I know your position by who you've chosen to argue with. It is the opposite of mine and Xerafin's position. If it is the same, that you support lifting the ban, then why the argument?

We have a different risk tolerance when it comes to clinical trials. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

 

Which leads me to ask, is that risk tolerance (exactly the right descriptor) based on actual scientific knowledge of the potential for bad outcomes, or is it more pharma companies' selectivity in funding these trials (why cure a type 1 in his teens when you can sell him drugs for life? asks the cynic in me), or simply the national phobia of lawsuits?

 

Because if you don't there's a good chance that "small pharma" will find and sell him a cure, assuming you haven't regulated small pharma out of existence.