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Bosnia and Russia are both listed as having worse infant mortality rates than the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mor...
I was going by the CIA factbook. It lists Bosnia at 6.1 (50% lower than the Wiki). The Wiki entry claims it uses the CIA factbook as a source. So I'm not really sure which source that Wiki entry is relying on.
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And all of that surrounding infrastructure is reliant on Mathematics which didn't originate in the US.
Such a useless comment. Mathematics was arrived at by research which everyone shared when the vast majority of the research was happening...
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Huh? Do you have an idea of how science and medicine works?
Just wondering what this has to do with Hacker News. But anyway, check out: http://www.cancer-research-awareness.com/why-chemotherapy-ne... http://www.smashcancer.com/2010/08/22/cancer-lies-and-the-me... http://current.com/green/89138817_cancer-is-not-a-disease-ch... Just a few writings and articles speaking about the lie that is chemotherapy. I have an idea how medicine works, let me spell it out here for you: 1. Po…
I think it's disingenuous to lump all cancer and all chemo together. There are thousands of types of each, some more effective than others. Cancer is a horrifically complicated set of diseases.
Also, would I have gotten cancer if I didn't eat GMO food? Who knows. There's zero evidence that that's true.
If what the courts are saying is true and the new patent covering crystallization is trivial, the expired patent should be just as effective and free to use? If it's not as effective, that seems to make the case for the new Novartis patent.
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> The US is effectively subsidizing advanced healthcare for every other country in the world. That's a very misinformed statement.
> What if the European countries had to had to pay for their own defense? The European countries pay big bucks for their own defense, thank you very much. And the US doesn't provide any defense at all. It merely uses its pressure to get the European countries to participate in its inane crusades and wars, from Korea to Iraq, which are for it's own interests. Plus, defense against what? The only thing that brings any…
I also think you have absolutely no clue who international politics works by your blatant naivety. There's a lot more at stake than "access to oil". FYI Iraq showed oil reserves far superior to that of Saudi Arabia, and FYI Saudi Arabia has a military far exceeding most European states (UK, France and Germany obviously excluded due to the amount they do spend, but the Saudi Air force exceeds the UK for active combat air planes). Iraq with more money than Saudi Arabia and an intense hatred for the US/Europe would have been a massive fucking deal. Saudi Arabias royal family however is on good terms with the US government, and I'm sure the US didn't want a regional war between Iraq and Saudi Arabia locking down all Middle Eastern Oil production to ever be a possibility.
The War in Iraq was less about getting our hands on Iraqi oil, but getting their Regimes hands off of Iraqi oil. Had they been left alone since before the first gulf war, allowed to buy Russian hardware and build a military superior to that of Saudi Arabia, the region would be under their thumb and so would a massive chunk of the western worlds oil supply for military purposes. Not to mention they would have been well within the budget range to develop nuclear weapons without ever having to test like North Korea.
The US also didn't sit around and leave Europe high and dry in conflicts like the Kosovo War, because following your logic why should the US be dragged into a purely European conflict. Basically, because the US gives a shit about keeping its allies in place and stable and their enemies crippled and weak, which is what the rest of the world is trying to do too.
So when NATO countries have a vested interest in keeping a country down (Iraq) because it developing a military will support an old adversary (Russia), you can bet they'll tell the public whatever they fucking want to justify a situation like the Cold War never gets the opportunity to arise.
It's a sad state of affairs that crippling the development of foreign countries is in our own best interest, but personally I enjoy my way of life and the world isn't a John Lennon song.
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> The US is effectively subsidizing advanced healthcare for every other country in the world. That's a very misinformed statement.
Please provide some data to back that up because it is a common belief that the high cost of producing a new drug is offset by the US consumer.
Just as with the development of computers and the internet, we can thank the US taxpayer and government for subsidizing pharmaceutical innovations. Which is then sold back to us at hilarious rates.
Pharmas reap wonderful profits in other countries (otherwise they probably wouldn't operate in them), just not extreme profits they can extract from US people. It's propaganda that high US prices benevolently subsidize pharma for the rest of the world; this narrative increases nationalism, and sets up an entitlement complex. Propaganda's a great way to get your targets to believe in their own fleecing.
This is basically the paradox of US healthcare innovation. Canada can tell its pharmaceutical companies, "yeah, that cool drug you just invented, we're not gonna pay you what you want for that." And what option does the pharmaceutical company have? Convince healthcare providers to charge retail prices to their patients as an out-of-pocket expense, or... reduce prices accordingly. Because healthcare payments are not f…
You say that US healthcare leads the way in innovation but in certain key measures like Infant Mortality and Life Expectancy it's not leading the field at all.
Edit: Here's a relevant reference, from the WHO, if anyone has doubts about this being a serious issue: http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/6/07-043471/en/