Why are US consumers subsidizing health care research for the rest of the world?

[Fumesucker]

Clearly, the US system of health care generates more cutting edge research into life saving and life improving medical techniques than the rest of the word.

Given that this is so, and also given that health care consumers in the US pay far more than those in the rest of the world for care that is arguably worse than that in many other places then why are US consumers subsidizing research that will benefit citizens of other nations that pay much less for health care than do we?

It would seem that American consumers are bearing the weight of the health care research slackers in the rest of the world.

Before you reply to my post I urge you to take a look at my tagline and try to grasp what it might mean.

[ddeclue]

1. It's NOT so clear that US research is so much better

or that the drug industry produces many breakthroughs other than me-too erection pills. I mean do we really need a drug to help people grow longer eyelashes? (I'm not kidding this is an actual drug advertised on TV.)

What IS clear is that other countries aren't stupid and have passed laws to protect their citizens from our medical industry that is screwing us over by forcing price controls and nationalizing their health care.

The solution is NOT to force them to engage in a chase to the bottom and end up with OUR screwed up system.

The solution is adopt THEIR system and throw the insurance companies out on their ass and make the drug companies act in a competitive manner by limiting patent periods and scope of patents to force them to compete and force them to negotiate for contracts with the gov't instead of paying whatever they want to extort from us.

[Fumesucker]

2. I'm guessing you didn't understand my tagline..

I'm fond of irony.

Sometimes looking at things from a completely different perspective allows us to see some aspects which we have not heretofore grokked.

[truedelphi]

4. +1. n/t

[DBoon]

3. because we are cheaper than lab rats?

and there are certain things even lab rats refuse to do?

[truedelphi]

5. You raise a good point.

Over the last fifteen years, we saw the FDA hastily approve a vaccine FOR BABIES that was supposed to prevent diarrhea, and it ended up killing over 100 infants due to intestinal blockages. Those babies died in the very short time that the vaccine was on the market.

Then we also have the FDA approval for a device involving heart repair and that device ended up killing thousands. But the bean counters over at Merck decided it would be cheaper to pay off the families from those who died than to not have the profits from the device.

In both cases, you have the revolving door of industry-government protocols at work. So what if I approve a medical device that kills thousands, as long as you end up giving me the executive level position you've offered me once my tenure at the gov agency has expired? The bureaucrats that end up over at the FDA could care less (many of them) what some device or pill does or doesn't do. Talking as I do to independent scientists, I have come to realize that "corporate science" is simply the re-arranging of numbers to strengthen the accrediting of some substance as to its being safe.

One of the scariest conversations I have ever had was with Nancy Balter, who now works in Colorado. At the time, (Circa 1999) Ms Balter was considered the preeminent expert on the components of the gas additive MTBE. However, she did not know that MTBE when placed inside a car's combustion chamber spins off into a high proportion of the chemical formaldehyde. (This would be like a coffee expert not knowing that the substance has caffeine!) Yet this was who industry was relying on fo their safety estimates and benefit to risk models!

Meanwhile through the marvels of genetic engineering and GMO-zation of seeds and foods, the herbal drugs available to all of us for pennies on the dollars will be thrown off the market, (Obama's FDA people are already guaranteeing industry that this will happen, and in some small part it already has - google FDA and vitamin B6!) Yes, each time some company cracks the code inside the plant and then creates a synthetic pill or GMO-ized pill based on that herb's efficacy, the source of that, ie the herb, will be taken off the health food store's shelves.

And all for our own good, Guldarn it!