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Comment by krickle | Hacker News Reader

Or we could take the money those pills cost, give it directly to researchers, and open source the results. Lower costs, same results, money left over for plenty of other things. I mean you do know the US has the worst cost/lifespan ratio of the western world, right?

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I mean you do know the US has the worst cost/lifespan ratio of the western world, right?

Yup. It also invents the medicine.

I take it by your flippancy that you disagree. Am I correct in assuming that you mean to insinuate that removing the profit incentive for Big Pharma executives (cancel patents) without reducing the salaries of researchers (use the saved cost on research) would render the US incapable of inventing any medicine at all? Because I disagree with that.

Yes. Here's a quick reason why: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5001897

You don't seem to understand where the money goes.

You wrote that because research costs money, nobody will fund it without patents, completely disregarding the argument that there are other ways to fund research.

I'm writing about what happens, not what I think should happen. I'm not going to try to defend the status quo. I'm for patent reform also. But I can see where some form of patents may be advantageous. But I'm trying to stay out of that discussion. There are people who know far more sides of the story than I do who are in a better position to suggest models of patent reform.

Are you saying that the US invents the medecine ? If yes, do you have any sources ? If no what are you saying ?

Yes, that's what I'm saying. I don't have time right now to compile the sources- but there have been exposèes on the subject of medicine invented in US sold to Canadian and European markets at gov't negotiated prices (and then black-market sold back to customers in the US at lower prices than available in the US).

As far as where the bulk of the research is done? Well, you can look that up yourself.

I would love to have your sources then because it sounds silly to me. But may may be you should define medecine first.

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