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Scientist who cured type I Diabetes in mice was denied funding for human trials

columbiaspectator.com

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Re: Scientist who cured type I Diabetes in mice was denied funding for human trials

#31

Post by rsheridan6 »

mkramlich wrote: post #3

The article touches on one of the risks to the health care industry today, at least here in the US: In many cases, the pharmaceutical companies are making billions by selling drugs which merely reduce undesired symptoms. But do not CURE the underlying problem. And the symptom reduction only lasts while the user continues to buy and consume the drug. Therefore, in many cases, these companies have a strong financial in…

The big companies that already have treatments for diabetes (for example) definitely have an interest in not curing it, but a small startup would be happy to make millions destroying a multibillion dollar industry.

Re: Scientist who cured type I Diabetes in mice was denied funding for human trials

#32

Post by mattmanser »

rsheridan6 wrote: post #31
mkramlich wrote: post #3

The article touches on one of the risks to the health care industry today, at least here in the US: In many cases, the pharmaceutical companies are making billions by selling drugs which merely reduce undesired symptoms. But do not CURE the underlying problem. And the symptom reduction only lasts while the user continues to buy and consume the drug. Therefore, in many cases, these companies have a strong financial in…

The big companies that already have treatments for diabetes (for example) definitely have an interest in not curing it, but a small startup would be happy to make millions destroying a multibillion dollar industry.

People upvoting this are dreamers as that industry costs a phenomenal amount of money to put something through trials.

Millions is a trivial amount on what you could throw down the drain and end up with no actual product. It's not vulnerable to a startup as a startup can't practically enter that market. You'd need to be producing something else first.

And small? Not gonna cut it.

Something that works on mice and even something that looks in the lab to cure the disease often doesn't work in trials and doesn't beat the placebo effect.

Re: Scientist who cured type I Diabetes in mice was denied funding for human trials

#34

Post by stretchwithme »

tome wrote: post #30
stretchwithme wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

government is coercion, the use of force against peaceful people. I can't imagine why that would do anything but destroy. People look at what escapes destruction as if government created it. yes, we have a weird government supported insurance industry driven approach that is quite distortive and destructive. I am fully in favor of ending it and letting peaceful people make their own choices.

Sorry I don't buy this. When it comes down to it, society in itself is coercion. If you don't like that you can go and live on the moon, but whilst you live with and near other people, coercion will exist. The problem is to accept coercion and discover its most beneficent form, not eliminate it.

it is possible for people to voluntarily cooperate. they can do so in matters of mutual defense and many other things. THAT is what civilization depends upon, as a matter of fact.

In fact, this is exactly how most people live their lives. They wouldn't think of using force against others, except when it comes to defending themselves and the people and things they care about from those who use force against them.

But when people get together in a group, they suddenly feel they aren't bound by the same standards. They somehow acquire rights beyond simple self defense. And history is littered with corpses as a result.

coercion is not necessary to cooperate, to have a society. coercion IS necessary to take advantage others. that does take the use of force. people don't seem to go along with being abused willingly.

Re: Scientist who cured type I Diabetes in mice was denied funding for human trials

#35

Post by MichaelSalib »

hackermom wrote: post #26

To state the obvious: there's more money in keeping people ill and in need of temporary amelioration than there is in curing them, and such is the foundation of american pharmaceutical industry.

Is this really true in this case? I mean, insulin is fairly cheap, right?

Re: Scientist who cured type I Diabetes in mice was denied funding for human trials

#36

Post by kiba »

tome wrote: post #30
stretchwithme wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

government is coercion, the use of force against peaceful people. I can't imagine why that would do anything but destroy. People look at what escapes destruction as if government created it. yes, we have a weird government supported insurance industry driven approach that is quite distortive and destructive. I am fully in favor of ending it and letting peaceful people make their own choices.

Sorry I don't buy this. When it comes down to it, society in itself is coercion. If you don't like that you can go and live on the moon, but whilst you live with and near other people, coercion will exist. The problem is to accept coercion and discover its most beneficent form, not eliminate it.

Most part of society doesn't involve coercion. Most of us don't go around threating people with murder because we believe it to be wrong. If most men are criminal, we wouldn't be able to have a civilization.

What people really should be striving for is voluntary alternatives to coerciveness measures, not trying to find the best form of coercion.

Re: Scientist who cured type I Diabetes in mice was denied funding for human trials

#37

Post by bedris »

mkramlich wrote: post #10
dennisgorelik wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a classic example of an area where government can NOT do better than business, because government sucks at innovation. There are plenty of companies that are not selling insulin, so they would be interested to be able to sell diabetes cure. Assuming the chances of developing the cure are reasonably good.

Disagree. Individuals (scientists, doctors, lab technicians, inventors) can do the innovating, can do the research. They just need to be paid and given space and tools and time to do it in. Enter government. Government does not need to innovate, just write checks. The problem with the alternative, like a large private corporation, can be that it may not be in their best interests profit wise to pursue a certain line…

Individuals (scientists, doctors, lab technicians, inventors) can do the innovating, can do the research. They just need to be paid and given space and tools and time to do it in. Enter government. Government does not need to innovate, just write checks.

In principal, you are correct, but you are neglecting one very important point: the government is not a nebulous entity with an endless supply of money. Therefore, the individuals that comprise the government must identify (either directly, or by selecting individuals who are most qualified in a given area of expertise to serve as proxies) the scientists whose ideas, proposals, past productivity, and requests for facilities most warrant funding.

Separating the wheat from the chaff is a non-trivial exercise. It may not be be direct innovation, but I would argue that it is every bit as challenging.

Re: Scientist who cured type I Diabetes in mice was denied funding for human trials

#38

Post by apinstein »

I call bunk.

There are many thousands of biotech companies, the vast majority of which do not sell drugs that treat chronic diabetes.

Any one of them would love to sell a diabetes drug that cures diabetes.

Either this researcher only courted a few companies that already sell diabetes treatments, who unsurprisingly didn't want to fund him (does Comcast fund startups that help you avoid buying cable? NO!) or there is something else about his research that made people not want to continue with it.

Re: Scientist who cured type I Diabetes in mice was denied funding for human trials

#39

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

mkramlich wrote: post #3

The article touches on one of the risks to the health care industry today, at least here in the US: In many cases, the pharmaceutical companies are making billions by selling drugs which merely reduce undesired symptoms. But do not CURE the underlying problem. And the symptom reduction only lasts while the user continues to buy and consume the drug. Therefore, in many cases, these companies have a strong financial in…

I hear this argument all the time and it ignores one fundamental fact: there is more than one large pharmaceutical company and they don't all make $disease_x_treatment.

That one company makes billions selling a treatment for a disease has no bearing on a competing company making a cure for that disease and cornering the market. If anything, it's the very definition of a market-driven solution to a problem.

Now, it's true that there are diseases which are so rare that it's not commercially worth developing a cure, and perhaps government funding is useful in that case but that's a completely different topic.

Re: Scientist who cured type I Diabetes in mice was denied funding for human trials

#40

Post by FraaJad »

Is America the only country in the world where he could get his drugs trial tested and put into market? There are umpteen number of pharma companies in the developing countries which are ready to take a working product to their market. Why not use them?
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