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Comment by taneq | Hacker News Reader

The rational, informed decision is that the government should run its own medical R&D. But no, we can't do that because muh freedums.

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You mean like the National Institutes of Health?

Yes, but more. You guys spend eleventy billion dollars on fighter jets with questionable hovering capability, can't you spend like four billion on nobody having cancer ever again?

I have a relative who works at the CDC and has had cancer multiple times. Before life and money got in the way, we used to talk regularly on the phone. She bitched a lot about how 99 studies out of 100 were variations on a theme because that's where the funding was. There was very little that was genuinely new and innovative.

I don't know how to solve that.

I've been getting myself well (different condition) for years when that's not supposed to be possible. I'm quite open about that on the internet. I get attacked for talking about it and called crazy. I'm told "Produce studies backing up your claims" when there are none. No one is latching on to my story and going "What if she's on to something? Maybe we can do a study that will open up new treatment modalities for patients!"

I don't think it's as simple to solve this as you think it is. I don't know what needs to happen to break the herd mentality where humans don't seem to want to give any credibility to anything not already proven, which actively interferes with being able to prove anything new.

Well hell, if you know it's going to be $4B to eradicate cancer, it should be easy to put the plan together and get funding. You'll save everyone billions forever.

Why are you screwing around on Hacker News?

NCI alone has a budget of like $5-6B/yr.

My grandmother was denied drugs by government-run healthcare and died in severe pain.

What does that have to do with taxpayer funded R&D for medicine?

Presumably, taneq's point was that medicine owned by taxpayers can be sold at the cost to manufacture and distribute it at far lower costs, as opposed to the current system where the owners of the research also needed to be compensated.

Most (if not all) new medicines came out of basic research supported by the NIH. This research was tweaked and patented by companies who profit from selling the drugs. Is start-to-finish government drug pipeline a better solution? Perhaps, but current academic culture doesn't support it. It's not just about pouring more taxpayer money.

That is awful and I'm so sorry to hear. :( It also doesn't invalidate my point, although it highlights that I should have said the government should run its own competent R&D

I believe what you just described is the NIH.

You are right, according to medical journal "The Lancet", 85% of (government-funded) research funding is “avoidably wasted across the entire biomedical research range (e.g., clinical, health services, and basic science)” Government-funded medical R&D (budget for the NIH: $34.4 billion for 2019) needs smarter spending.

Examples of prodects created by government run medical R&D?

A pop-sci list: https://www.med-technews.com/features/the-nhs-at-70-inventio...

1949: Intra-occular lens

1958: ultrasound for obstetrics

1962: total hip replacement

1978: test tube baby

1986: combined heart, liver, lung transplant

1991: robotic surgery

2000: gene therapy for children with no immune system

2013: bionic hand

There are lots more.

At best those examples are misleading.

The article ignores the R&D which often happened at private institutions and cherry pics the first use or minor refinement that occurred at a government facility.

Tofacitinib is one that I am familiar with. I am sure there are many more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofacitinib

Also, I think it's a valid question that doesn't deserve downvotes.

>Pfizer worked with O'Shea's [NIH funded] laboratory to define the structure and function of JAK3 and its receptors, and then handled the drug discovery, preclinical development, and clinical development of tofacitinib in-house.

This says the exact opposite...

NASA alone has plenty of good examples. Enriched baby food, CAT scans, heart replacement devices, better thermometers and imaging, and other minor advancements for specific procedures: better fiber optic devices for baby delivery, better lighting for brain cancer operations, improved cooling devices for certain symptoms. And again that's just specifically medical products that accidentally fell out of a space program.

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