While Afghanistan sinks back into the muck of religious extremism that frightened even the ayatollahs in Iran, the leaders of the de facto Kurdistan are rediscovering what sort of friend they have been relying on with Turkey being aided in its genocide of Kurds by the U.S.. South America’s democracies in open revolt against the hegemony of the norteamericans, a far more important war than all of those combined is flagging under assault from the left and corporate interests.
That is the War on Cancer initiated by that old reprobate, Dick Nixon.
Doctors don’t need more cancer drugs one Naderite told me. Oncologists don’t know which to select now.
Maybe one that works might be nice, I helpfully suggested.
While the anemic pipelines of the copycat drugs of Big Pharma continue to shrivel and patents on their marketed drugs continue to age and expire, emphasis is increasingly turning towards competing in generics and promotion. The wellspring of true innovation, the small biotechs, is drying up like the melting dew under the glare of journalists, rape by offshore lenders and other fine financiers, attack by the hedge funds and an increasingly hostile FDA.
Just imagine if we offered Pakistanis and Iraqis and Afghanis and others around the world novel new cures and treatments for deadly diseases, as we once did, instead of guns and bombs and bullets and money for dirty birds.
Nawww.
Wouldn’t want to do that.
Who would they have to hate?
Everyone needs enemies to make progress.
Best, Terry
3 comments
to the point
but i’d take it a step back… how about a war on better nutrition and lifestyle…
anyway…
drug making has become a manufacturing/big business thing and scientists are reduced to meeting timelines, like they have the power to pull compounds out of their asses (as those big through-put machines they use don’t seem to perform as promised)
but it’s that way with everything: the only thing that has value is money. we can’t have governments, corporations, or even families functioning in efficient and effective relationships when the only thing of value is money.
seems to me most product pipelines have dried up in an effort to drive all earnings to profits
i call it profit-driven depravity
uck.
Author
Surgeons can just slip this little plastic cup around failing hearts in a few minutes, the scientist told me, and it will force the heart to keep on pumping. We saved the life of a 17-year-old girl with that simple plastic doo-hickey. She is now in her 30’s and has children of her own.
So where the hell has this marvel been while another generation grew up, I asked.
Well you see venture capitalists wanted to make money fast and R&D takes time.
The actual conversation never took place as such because I was aware of the history of the CSS, a most modest-looking device that has been retrieved from the grave by another company willing to take a chance.
That chance was very costly.
The stock of the biotech (a bit of a misnomer) is currently selling for a nickel, down from over $3+ once.
Hillary Clinton loved it. Got a grant of a million from the feds for it. Or was it Rep. Louise Slaughter? Both naturally took credit. Bill Clinton got some notes on the heart machine from the CEO. I asked if Bill placed them over his own heart along with his little black book.
The scientist is gone. The CEO is gone with his reputation in tatters. The politicians are on to other things. Investors are weeping and gnashing their teeth. The lenders have collected their pound of flesh.
Development continues thanks to all. I suppose even the juice racketeers contributed but I am not overly anxious to give that bunch any credit.
What exactly does that have to do with a Johnson&Johnson for instance?
Would it be better to just wait on the government to do something?
You could wait until hell froze over.
I kinda like the idea of a heart machine that will cost far less than all those currently available at enormous prices, that takes a skilled cardiac surgeon to install and that doesn’t work very well in any case.
I am not so fond of what it has cost me to date.
Best, Terry