From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.nutrition,sci.med.pharmacy
Subject: Re: Drugmakers not following up speedy approval-US study
Date: 5 Jun 2005 11:52:28 -0700
Message-ID: <1117997548.570848.313140@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

>>To answer your question succinctly (something you might want to
practise) I want cancer to stop being an industry. With all that implies.
Zee <<

COMMENT:

Well, I'd like cancer to disappear from the face of the Earth, with all
that implies. If wishes were horses, then beggers would ride.

Wishing that cancer were not an "industry" (ie, subject to free market
rules to some extent) is about as wise as wishing that food and housing
and transportation were not "industries." Look luck, Comrade.  It's the
old Marxist dream of removing the free market from the table in solving
a problem of human need for goods and services, and then seeing what
happens.

If the entire 20th century has tought the world *anything,* it's that
what happens is,.things go to Hell! In China in the 60's millions of
people starved literally to death during a cultural revolution where
they had removed food production from being an "industry". Much the
same result as when Stalin had done so 30 years before.  But China
learned, and when they returned food production back to being an
industry, they stopped starving. Amazing.

The even more amazing thing is that while China learn something from
this (apparently), much of the West is forgetting. I talked to a doctor
at a sister research company the other day, who had grown up in
mainland China, then moved to Europe (Belgium), then Canada, then
finally to the US, following the availability of biomedical research
dollars. He commented that of the four countries in which he'd lived,
the most socialist one was Belgium. Followed by Canada. THEN mainland
China, followed by the US. What a sad commentary on the world.

There's no mystery about why removal of food production from being an
"industry" and control by the government causes the masses to starve.
Whereas having a government regulated private industry provides large
amounts of cheap food (though not necessarily the healthiest diet,
since what people want is not always whats' good for them).  The reason
is that when food is an industry, everybody participates. They vote
with their dollars, and they get the ultimate democratic solution. It
isn't perfect, but like democracy itself, it's rather difficult to see
how to make it much better.

Much the same thing happens in medicine. When India removed their drug
making capability from being an industry 35 years ago, the very act
destroyed 95% of it. India became entirely an atrophied parasite,
living on the rest of the world's drug development. When it came time
for India to join the world's intellectual property laws, they had to
start their drug development industry all over again, from the ground
up.  They (and their socialized government) had killed it. But I'm not
sure they learned anything there. Somethere something about the British
that makes them think medical care should be Communist. All over the
former British empire you see the remains of this disease of thought.
Show me a picture of the Queen of England on some country's money at
any time, and I'll show you a people who think somebody else (anybody
else) should be paying for their medical research. And in India's case,
complaining that the ultimate socialist medical program (the UN's WHO)
isn't giving them what they WANT, on somebody else's nickel (with WHO,
that would be largely the US nickel).

Golly, who've have guessed THAT would happen?

SBH

From: Steve Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.med.nutrition,sci.med.pharmacy
Subject: Re: Drugmakers not following up speedy approval-US study
Date: 5 Jun 2005 14:55:47 -0700
Message-ID: <1118008546.977413.39830@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

>>Since the rest of the world's drug development is 95 per cent lifestyle
drugs for "diseases" induced by the rest of the world's indulgent
lifestyle, it only seems fitting the rest of the world should pay for
95 per cent of the "research" (read marketing and promotion)  of these
redundant and me-too drugs. <<

COMMENT

You are not making any sense. Try again in straight English.

I believe you sent me the Indian article complaining about the WHO
polio vaccination campaign? As though India was paying for this?  You'd
think from the whining that the UN had sent blue-helmets into New Delhi
to prevent India from making its own vaccines.  Sorry, but nothing of
the sort occured. India is quite free to produce its own vaccines any
time it likes. And free to wipe out its own polio with those vaccines,
whenever it chooses to spend the money for it. Just as the US did many
MANY years ago, when it developed the first polio vaccines from  a
combination of government funding and private donation (The March of
Dimes).

India, instead, has chosen to spend its polio money developing nuclear
weapons for use against Pakistan (and did so first, long before
Pakistan did the same). But the people of India are still great whiners
when it comes to their own health and about who in the "developed"
world isn't paying to fix it. In true colonial tradition.

Yes, I suppose polio is indeed a lifestyle disease. If your lifestyle
is to live in stinking villages with no sewage treatment, poop in the
water supply, and spend your country's money on nukes instead of
vaccines, you're gunna suffer for it.
Was that what you had in mind?  I can't tell.

>> I love it when you go on these irrational rants. I kind of imagine you
rushing in from the blender action, plunking your generous self down, and
having forth, spittle flying from your lips. <<

You should talk. When you get to ranting yourself, you become
completely unintelligable.

Generous? At age 48 I'm 6'3", 220 lbs. I could stand to lose 10% of my
body weight, and am doing so. Who among you reading this could not (and
how old are you)?  Post your pics on the web. Put up or shut up. I'm
tired of snide remarks from anonymous, faceless cowards.

SBH