21–30 of 98 posts
A naive question: So much “tax payer” money is going towards research funding. But it looks like private companies are reaping rewards, mostly as a new drug. Why is this research not (mainly) privately funded?
A naive question: So much “tax payer” money is going towards research funding. But it looks like private companies are reaping rewards, mostly as a new drug. Why is this research not (mainly) privately funded?
a lot of basic research is very risky and most of the time it’s not stuff that leads to immediate development of a new drug. it’s basically acquiring knowledge with the hope that some of it might turn out to be practically useful in the future, but in the short term, it just allows us to understand stuff. but it’s not directly profitable, so private companies aren’t motivated to invest so much money in that
The positive side seems to be that relinquishing our position[1] as the medical research country should lower healthcare prices. For decades we've been told that our healthcare prices were due to medical research - drug discovery, device innovation, &etc. By destroying our ability to do research, we should expect to see healthcare prices equalize at a price where those costs are no longer factored in, right? 1. By wa…
Funding the research privately increases costs to end user as private ensurer is directly accruing more cost. Research stopping increases costs to end user as new/novel cures/treatments aren't found.
Cost for consumer goes up because of lost opportunity cost of 1) learning to diagnose earlier 2) finding new or cheaper cures/treatments.
You can make the argument 'But other countries will pick up the slack!' - but that doesn't necessarily help either, why would they give us the results of their research cheaper? US already jacked up pricing via an executive order on drug pricing just this year to knock that.
Publicly funded medical research is an absolute positive for the US general public health and wallets. We're all losing here on both ends of the spectrum ($$ and actual general public health).
A naive question: So much “tax payer” money is going towards research funding. But it looks like private companies are reaping rewards, mostly as a new drug. Why is this research not (mainly) privately funded?
It's impossible to discover a basic fact, such as "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell," and monetize it fully within the same organization. A million scientists can take a look at that basic fact and involve it in their own research in ten million ways. It's also not practical to keep those facts as trade secrets over the several decades over which their applications need to develop. Even if an industry c…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
a lot of basic research is very risky and most of the time it’s not stuff that leads to immediate development of a new drug. it’s basically acquiring knowledge with the hope that some of it might turn out to be practically useful in the future, but in the short term, it just allows us to understand stuff. but it’s not directly profitable, so private companies aren’t motivated to invest so much money in that
this sounds like it's a really bad idea for the government to fund. What's to stop someone who happens to have made it in the ivory tower go crazy, spin up some kooky ideas that are highly risky and just blow taxpayer money on something not really accountable?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
this sounds like it's a really bad idea for the government to fund. What's to stop someone who happens to have made it in the ivory tower go crazy, spin up some kooky ideas that are highly risky and just blow taxpayer money on something not really accountable?
That's why when you apply for grants, they are reviewed by the panels of experts and then you have to report the results/progress. Nobody will just give you money for something crazy.
A naive question: So much “tax payer” money is going towards research funding. But it looks like private companies are reaping rewards, mostly as a new drug. Why is this research not (mainly) privately funded?
To imply that private companies reap the rewards of basic research without contribute much is ignoring the many other components of translational work.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's impossible to discover a basic fact, such as "the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell," and monetize it fully within the same organization. A million scientists can take a look at that basic fact and involve it in their own research in ten million ways. It's also not practical to keep those facts as trade secrets over the several decades over which their applications need to develop. Even if an industry c…
that's a pretty funny example you gave, because the discovery of the chemiosmotic effect was not funded by the government, it was privately funded by a guy who raised money and holed himself up in a regency estate with an assistant for a few years to prove it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_D._Mitchell
More realistically, what would happen would be that rather than sacrificing themselves for the greater good in some kind of voluntarily socialist outpouring of wealth, they'd ask us to look to China for our scientific future.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
a lot of basic research is very risky and most of the time it’s not stuff that leads to immediate development of a new drug. it’s basically acquiring knowledge with the hope that some of it might turn out to be practically useful in the future, but in the short term, it just allows us to understand stuff. but it’s not directly profitable, so private companies aren’t motivated to invest so much money in that
this sounds like it's a really bad idea for the government to fund. What's to stop someone who happens to have made it in the ivory tower go crazy, spin up some kooky ideas that are highly risky and just blow taxpayer money on something not really accountable?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
that's a pretty funny example you gave, because the discovery of the chemiosmotic effect was not funded by the government, it was privately funded by a guy who raised money and holed himself up in a regency estate with an assistant for a few years to prove it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_D._Mitchell
Private and public philanthropy both contribute to science in the same way. If you're asking why private philanthropists can't replace federal funding, it's the same as the reason why we can't just make billionaires pay all the tax: the NSF budget would bankrupt Bill Gates in 13 years. More realistically, what would happen would be that rather than sacrificing themselves for the greater good in some kind of voluntari…
An example is the superconducting supercollider. Chemistry and pharma industry were making NMRs cheaper and the cost of the supercollider components went down. So the LHC was a much more effective "buy" than the SSC.