The cure for cancer is worth $50 TRILLION dollars

[KKbluff]

University of Chicago economists say finding a cure for cancer would be worth about $50 trillion in social value.


The study by Kevin Murphy (L) and Robert Topel (R) of the university's graduate school of business suggests even a 1 percent reduction in cancer mortality would be worth nearly $500 billion.

Social value of improved health and longevity is the amount in dollars additional life years or other health improvements are worth to people, the report said. The value of improved longevity is based on what individuals gain from the enjoyment of consumption and time during an additional year of life, rather than how much they earn.

Since the benefits of cancer research are large, substantially greater research expenditures would be worthwhile, Murphy and Topel wrote."

During the 20th century, average life expectancy of Americans increased by 30 years, due in large part to medical advances against major diseases. The authors estimate that increase in life expectancy is worth more than $1.2 million for each American alive today.

The study was presented Tuesday during the annual conference of the American Association for Cancer Research in Washington and is to be published in the Journal of Political Economy.


Link (http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7843)

Just thought Id share this interesting article with you all.

[EvilSmurf]

Kinda blows the whole "Drug companies are supressing the cure for cancer" comspiracy theory out of the water, dunnit?

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Kinda blows the whole "Drug companies are supressing the cure for cancer" comspiracy theory out of the water, dunnit?

[/ QUOTE ]



Nope. It is also widely known and admitted that pharmaceutical companies don't go for cures, they go for treatments. The history of many vaccines is proof of this.


Also:
The value of improved longevity is based on what individuals gain from the enjoyment of consumption and time during an additional year of life, rather than how much they earn.

that kind of inflates the value. Companies don't care about "enjoyment" they care about dollars.

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Kinda blows the whole "Drug companies are supressing the cure for cancer" comspiracy theory out of the water, dunnit?

[/ QUOTE ]



Nope. It is also widely known and admitted that pharmaceutical companies don't go for cures, they go for treatments. The history of many vaccines is proof of this.

This statement smacks of conspiracy nonsense and is self-contradictory. A vaccine prevents the onset of a disease, it is not a treatment for the disease, which would be far more profitable to a PC.

As far a "cures" go, we have "cures" for relatively simple bacterial infections. However, most diseases, once they have done their damage, cannot be "cured" because they have permanently damaged organs, nerves, immune systems etc. We can treat symptoms, delay progression, but true cures have been impossible in the past.

The real hope for "cures" lies in genetic engineering, stem cells, growth of new organs, all of which are being vigorously pursued by PCs and research institutes.

[guesswest]

As far as the ease or difficulty of inventing cures vs treatments I have no thoughts, I don't have sufficient medical knowledge to get involved in that debate.

But I don't see how this $50 trillion figure says anything either way about drug companies motivations. That figure seems to be quantifying the social cost of cancer in terms of lost productivity etc - how much money drug companies would make selling treatments, cures and a comparison between the two is surely a completely different and unrelated figure?

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]
A vaccine prevents the onset of a disease, it is not a treatment for the disease, which would be far more profitable to a PC.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, which would be more profitable, the vaccine or the treatment?

[billygrippo]

the cure for cancer is michael jackson sucking you off.

[traz]

[ QUOTE ]
the cure for cancer is michael jackson sucking you off.

[/ QUOTE ]

So i'm set?

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A vaccine prevents the onset of a disease, it is not a treatment for the disease, which would be far more profitable to a PC.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, which would be more profitable, the vaccine or the treatment?

[/ QUOTE ]

the treatment. Its hard to get companies to produce vaccines because they arent profitable

[MathEconomist]

I haven't read this paper, so I don't know exactly what methodology they used to estimate the value of additional life years, but I assume that they used basically the standard method of doing this or some variation of it.

Basically, the standard method for economists estimating value is to equate willingness to pay (ie the demand curve) with value. Whatever you're willing to pay for something ought to be how valuable it is to you. So at any rate, usually these kinds of studies are done by looking at otherwise comparable jobs with different risks of death and using that to infer the value people place on life. They might also look at other situations where one could infer a payment for life expectancy.

Some potential problems with this methodology are probably obvious to non-economists. But it should be obvious that some of the stuff people are saying about drug companies (like "Companies don't care about "enjoyment" they care about dollars. ") are nonsense in this context since the value we're getting is in terms of peoples' willingness to pay for additional life expectancy. That value comes from enjoyment, time spent with family, etc, in addtion to income earned, but it is something people are willing to pay for, and it is in fact their willingness to pay for it that makes its value quantifiable at all.

So yes, to the extent that this estimation is even close to correct, it seriously undercuts the conspiracy nutjobs claiming cures for cancer are being supressed. One caveat though is that pharmaceutical companies are not going to be able to capture all of this value because of patent limitations and other issues, and some of it gets taxed away anyway. So the private and public benefits to develop a cure aren't quite in line, and that might suggest additional government subsidies for this research (or tax breaks for companies that develop breakthroughs), but if the benefits are anywhere near this large it doesn't really matter because even the private benefits are huge.

[KeysrSoze]

I don't know, I think pharm corps can get away with charging a lot more for months of chemo than they could if there was one simple injection that would target cancer cells and eliminate them easily and permanently. Sure, they could set the price at $100,000 a pop, but the public and goverment would have a fit, and they'd be legislated to death or even nationalized if they tried that crap.

/no, I'm not wearing a tin-foil had at the moment.

[guesswest]

Right. And I have no idea if it actually is the case that corporate medicine is cure averse - that may just be cynicism.

But regardless, there's no way you can charge $1 million for a vaccine, a cure, or some other one time (relatively) inexpensive to produce treatment, even if people would be willing to pay it - socially we wouldn't allow that. So I'd guess the real retail worth of a cure is a tiny fraction of the quoted $50 trillion.

[madnak]

The problem is that a competitor could introduce a cure and they'd lose all their business. Whoever develops the cure first is going to make a lot of money.

Also the medical market is huge. The doctors aren't going to run out of money. Even if half of the world's medical problems were magically solved tomorrow, doctors would still be some of the busiest people on earth. Reducing demand might lower wages for MDs, but then again there are many other ways for a doctor to make money than treating patients. And I wonder about the relative profitability of chemo. Isn't it a reasonably expensive procedure?

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A vaccine prevents the onset of a disease, it is not a treatment for the disease, which would be far more profitable to a PC.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wait, which would be more profitable, the vaccine or the treatment?

[/ QUOTE ]

the treatment. Its hard to get companies to produce vaccines because they arent profitable

[/ QUOTE ]

Alright- it seems like Vaccines should be profitable if you can get them into the mainstram of Early childhood injections where you will have millions recieving them annually. Or are even ones that are this common not profitable because of development costs? Or are they just not AS profitable?
I can see a huge disparity between Cancer and Hepatitus (i've had Hep B immunizations, and the first of Hep A) as Cancer is non comuunicable, while if you vaccinate a person for Hep you are losing their treatment as a buisness, but also potentially everyone they might have infected.

Math Economist:
What is the disparity between what people are "willing" to pay and what they are actually "able" to pay?
Also how would more vaccinations/cures affected the Insurance industries profits?

[guesswest]

I know that question's not directed at me - but if you ask someone who's dying of cancer how much they'd be willing to pay for a cure, you're basically just asking them how much money they have. And this $50 trillion amount comes from asking that question.

The actual retail value, ie how much society would accept them charging if a cure existed, is likely only a small mark-up from production costs, which would most likely be a tiny fraction of that $50 trillion amount. So a cure for cancer is not in any meaningful way worth $50 trillion, not based on this study anyway.

And I don't think anyones arguing that a cure wouldn't be profitable, just whether or not it'd be more profitable than ongoing treatment.

[MathEconomist]

[ QUOTE ]
I know that question's not directed at me - but if you ask someone who's dying of cancer how much they'd be willing to pay for a cure, you're basically just asking them how much money they have. And this $50 trillion amount comes from asking that question.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, as I mentioned earlier, this is almost assuredly NOT how the get the 50 trillion figure. These kinds of estimates are usually derived from looking at occupational data and seeing a dollar amount x in pay difference between otherwise comparable jobs that change life expectancy by y. So the number comes from what people ARE ACTUALLY PAYING for increased life expectancy. Unless you've read the paper and know that they've used a method different from the usual method, I'm not inclined to believe that they just asked people what they're willing to pay. I don't believe the JPE would publish the paper if that were the case.

Whether or not this number is the correct estimate for what people would pay for a cure for cancer depends on a lot of things. It is, at least in principle, probably the right way to measure the value of such a cure, but what actually happens depends a lot on a number of factors like what the cure looks like (ie a vaccine that prevents anyone from developing cancer, or a chemo-like long treatment that eliminates the disease with success rate close to 100% or any number of possibilities that I'm not qualified to guess the likelihood of exist.) People aren't exactly rational, so there's probably no reason to expect that the value people place on small percentage reductions in the chance of accidental death can be used to infer what someone will do when staring death in the face even though we should be able to. And as I said, there are also other problems with this standard methodology. But it does pin down actual willingness to pay for extra years of life, not just "gee how much would you pay me for a cure for cancer."

[ QUOTE ]
Math Economist:
What is the disparity between what people are "willing" to pay and what they are actually "able" to pay?
Also how would more vaccinations/cures affected the Insurance industries profits?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I'm not a health economist (in fact although it's really important from a policy standpoint, I find the field ridiculously boring), so I can't answer the latter question. In principle, there are offsetting effects. A vaccine has a much larger audience since not everyone could ever get the disease, but you're also less willing to pay to avoid something you might not get anyway than to have something you definitely have treated. At any rate, I don't know how this actually works out since I don't study this.

As for the first question, willingness to pay is maybe a bad word to use when talking to non-economists. It isn't some abstract concept. It's what you actually would pay me for a good. Whatever price transactions take place at is definitely less than or equal to your willingness to pay. Your willingness to pay is the highest amount of money you would trade me for a good. It is possible this is equal to your entire wealth since people take on debt to pay for lots of things. As I said earlier, willingness to pay basically is just reading off the demand curve, and you can't demand a good at a price you're unable to pay.

Health markets are weird though because insurance causes massive distortions in individual decision making, and people aren't exactly rational when they think they're about to die. I'd rather someone more qualified than me discuss this, I just wanted to point out what were some misconceptions about where these numbers come from and what they mean.

[wheatrich]

I highly doubt they are subtracting all that $ that goes into their treatments of cancer--cause that has to be about 50 trillion as well...

There will never be a cure of cancer. Part of it is because one cancer is radically different than another and another part is that simply there's way too much $ involved here. The tests the medical people use to detect it cost thousands of dollars when they all know there's a simple blood test that would cost them less than a hundred bucks that would tell them. They just want as much $ as they can get their hands on and curing cancer would be serious -EV for them.

[guesswest]

I'm sure that's true math, and I'm likewise sure you have a better understanding of the methodologies used here. Nevertheless, a cure for cancer would not work by free market principles in the same way a piece of art would, it's price would not be determined by willingness to pay x amount, whether actual or potential. It's price would be manufacturing/development cost + small mark up - government and society wouldn't stand for anything else. And to that end I'd suggest $50 trillion is a ludicrous number to attach to it from the perspective of how much drug companies could charge for a cure (which probably isn't what the study was suggesting should be done anyway) - we're talking about roughly $7500 per human living anywhere in the world, with or without cancer.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
This statement smacks of conspiracy nonsense and is self-contradictory.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol. ok copernicus. Pick up any college biology book and it won't be long before you notice a trend that almost never waivers. Why don't you start with the penicillin and any of the major vaccines.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Or are they just not AS profitable?

[/ QUOTE ]

HIV costs 20K a year to treat. Do that for 10 years straight. When is the last time you paid that much for a vaccine?

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
However, most diseases, once they have done their damage, cannot be "cured" because they have permanently damaged organs, nerves, immune systems etc. We can treat symptoms, delay progression, but true cures have been impossible in the past.

[/ QUOTE ]

1) True cures are impossible? Um as far as I know the black plague, cholera, and many others are v curable and haven't been around in some time.

2) When I used cure I meant curing society which we have done with polio. Curing infectious diseases is simply bad for business.

bleh.......

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
1) True cures are impossible? Um as far as I know the black plague, cholera, and many others are v curable and haven't been around in some time.

2) When I used cure I meant curing society which we have done with polio. Curing infectious diseases is simply bad for business.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bam, nail on the head.

Let's look at this logistically, people.

A) The businesses that license and approve medical treatments are multibillion dollar industries.
B) Said businesses are government monopolies, meaning that they face no competition.
C) The people heading said businesses want to make money.
D) Treatments bring in more revenue than cures.
E) The heads of these industries have no personal incentive to allow cures into the market if they pose a threat to profits, and every reason to forbid cures so they can continue maximizing their profits, and it is fully within their power to do so.

Anyone else see the problem?

[purnell]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
1) True cures are impossible? Um as far as I know the black plague, cholera, and many others are v curable and haven't been around in some time.

2) When I used cure I meant curing society which we have done with polio. Curing infectious diseases is simply bad for business.

[/ QUOTE ]

Bam, nail on the head.

Let's look at this logistically, people.

A) The businesses that license and approve medical treatments are multibillion dollar industries.
B) Said businesses are government monopolies, meaning that they face no competition.
C) The people heading said businesses want to make money.
D) Treatments bring in more revenue than cures.
E) The heads of these industries have no personal incentive to allow cures into the market if they pose a threat to profits, and every reason to forbid cures so they can continue maximizing their profits, and it is fully within their power to do so.

Anyone else see the problem?

[/ QUOTE ]

Does anyone else think that this means that medical research would be more properly a job for (egads!) government, rather than the market?

[madnak]

Government is actually the reason the cures can be kept out of the market.

[purnell]

[ QUOTE ]
Government is actually the reason the cures can be kept out of the market.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't quite understand. Could you elaborate please?

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Or are they just not AS profitable?

[/ QUOTE ]

HIV costs 20K a year to treat. Do that for 10 years straight. When is the last time you paid that much for a vaccine?

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously- but many more people will take the vaccine than will pay for tretment.
Also- these incentives only exist for companies that currently control a large portion of the market. A smaller company (or a new one) could increase its bottom line much faster by coming out with a cure/vaccine than it could be trying to compete with established treatment methods and name recognition.

[madnak]

Well, I'm going to assume that you agree competition makes cures profitable. If you don't, then that's where I should start, so let me know.

The problem is stifled competition. The reason competition is stifled is government. This one is pretty easy because a cure is largely intellectual property. Without a government to enforce IP laws and restrict research through licensing laws and the like, anyone who comes up with a cure can sell the cure. Also the barriers to entry for pharmaceutical companies are removed because anybody with capital can create one. As a result competition becomes viable.

If VirusCorp is marketing treatments but withholding a cure, then when BustaGerm Inc comes out with a cure they'll destroy VirusCorp's business. People will flock to the company producing the cure, VirusCorp will have to start manufacturing its own cure to keep up, but while it's setting up production BustaGerm Inc is gaining control over the market. On the other hand, if VirusCorp releases its cure before BustaGerm Inc has a cure, they'll take BustaGerm Inc's business. So whoever markets the cure first get a bunch of profits.

There are many more reasons, but I don't want this to turn into another big AC post.

[MathEconomist]

Nothing prevents this from happening now. There are a number of pharmaceutical companies in existence now and no laws prevent them from competing with each other. In fact, they do compete with each other.

I realize that if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, but government isn't the cause of every problem, and it's not the cause of this one. With no IP laws, or some comparable way of protecting intellectual property, NOTHING gets developed because there is no way to prevent other people from simply copying whatever cure you came up with. Competition will bid down price to close to or around marginal cost, and whoever invented the cure takes a huge loss because there is no way for them to recoup their massive sunk development costs.

[madnak]

There's thread going about this in politics if you're interested.

Free competition isn't happening between pharmaceutical companies. There's a lot of corruption there. But this is going to turn into an AC post if I try to explain in any degree of detail how government can indirectly stifle competition and cause collusion and artificially incentivize negative business practices.

Government isn't close to being the source of all problems. But I think government is the cause of most preventable problems. If government were gone I'd probably move to con artists of various flavors.

[guesswest]

Nationalized medical research and drug development would, at the very least, make sense in countries with nationalized health care systems, which is most western nations - since governments could potentially save a great deal of money by developing treatments/cures instead of paying medical bills later. I'm sure the principle reason this isn't happening much is only that the benefits would take longer than the average politicians 4-year term to be realized.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
Does anyone else think that this means that medical research would be more properly a job for (egads!) government, rather than the market?

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's sub the market in.

[ QUOTE ]
A) The businesses that license and approve medical treatments are multibillion dollar industries.
B) Said businesses are private businesses, meaning that they face competition.
C) The people heading said businesses want to make money.
D) Actual cures bring in more revenue than treatments because people like them better and there is nothing that can be done to stop their existence.
E) The heads of these industries do have personal incentive to allow cures into the market if they pose a threat to competitors'profits, and lack the ability to forbid cures.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
However, most diseases, once they have done their damage, cannot be "cured" because they have permanently damaged organs, nerves, immune systems etc. We can treat symptoms, delay progression, but true cures have been impossible in the past.

[/ QUOTE ]


1) True cures are impossible? Um as far as I know the black plague, cholera, and many others are v curable and haven't been around in some time.

2) When I used cure I meant curing society which we have done with polio. Curing infectious diseases is simply bad for business.

bleh.......

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you miss where I said "other than bacterial infections"?

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Did you miss where I said "other than bacterial infections"?

[/ QUOTE ]

You had "simple" infront of bacteria which is very different. Even then you aren't correct as polio isn't a bacterial infection.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Obviously- but many more people will take the vaccine than will pay for tretment.

[/ QUOTE ]

True but people don't like paying for diseases they don't have.

[ QUOTE ]
A smaller company (or a new one) could increase its bottom line much faster by coming out with a cure/vaccine than it could be trying to compete with established treatment methods and name recognition.

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting theory, but you really shouldn't state this as fact until you open up a history/biology book and try to find out how often this happens. Good luck, cuz you are going to need it when searching for examples of this. Vaccines almost always come from Universities and government programs.

[wacki]

I'm going to make a general statement towards any AC'ers in this thread.

If you truly believe that:

1) The FDA can prevent cures from coming out not only in the the US but in every other country.
2) The grant money handed out by the NIH, CDC, etc to Universities is used to hinder development of vaccines.
3) Grant money and University research didn't play a massive role in the polio vaccine, penicillin, and just about every other major vaccine/cure discovery.

Then you are seriously delusional. These aren't up for debate. These are FACTS (well the opposite of these statements) and are provable via a 100 level college and even highschool biology textbook.

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Did you miss where I said "other than bacterial infections"?

[/ QUOTE ]

You had "simple" infront of bacteria which is very different. Even then you aren't correct as polio isn't a bacterial infection.

[/ QUOTE ]

There are immunizations to prevent polio, but as far as I know there are no cures for polio once its contracted.

You are reinforcing my point.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
1) The FDA can prevent cures from coming out not only in the the US but in every other country.
2) The grant money handed out by the NIH, CDC, etc to Universities is used to hinder development of vaccines.
3) Grant money and University research didn't play a massive role in the polio vaccine, penicillin, and just about every other major vaccine/cure discovery.

[/ QUOTE ]

Holy deceptive questions, Batman!

[tolbiny]

[ QUOTE ]

A smaller company (or a new one) could increase its bottom line much faster by coming out with a cure/vaccine than it could be trying to compete with established treatment methods and name recognition.



Interesting theory, but you really shouldn't state this as fact until you open up a history/biology book and try to find out how often this happens. Good luck, cuz you are going to need it when searching for examples of this. Vaccines almost always come from Universities and government programs.


[/ QUOTE ]

Initially i had a ? at the end of the sentance, but realized it wasn't a question, but i didn't write it intending it as fact in any way. It APPEARS (to me) as if this should happen, AC's in this thread have propsed some reasons why it doesn't in today's economy.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]

There are immunizations to prevent polio, but as far as I know there are no cures for polio once its contracted.

You are reinforcing my point.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fair enough. Still I maintain that curing society of any one disease is bad for an individual business in the pharmaceutical industry. It takes someone who isn't interested in profit to cure society of a disease.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
1) The FDA can prevent cures from coming out not only in the the US but in every other country.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're right. Of course they can't stop cures from coming out in other countries. That's a good thing.

[ QUOTE ]
2) The grant money handed out by the NIH, CDC, etc to Universities is used to hinder development of vaccines.

[/ QUOTE ]

You don't give money to universities to stop research. You can deny them money for research if you want, but giving them money is going to go toward research for the most part.

[ QUOTE ]
3) Grant money and University research didn't play a massive role in the polio vaccine, penicillin, and just about every other major vaccine/cure discovery.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well duh. Government money also built roads, schools, police, defense and fire protection. They had to, because they were the only ones that were allowed to provide them.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Initially i had a ? at the end of the sentance, but realized it wasn't a question, but i didn't write it intending it as fact in any way. It APPEARS (to me) as if this should happen, AC's in this thread have propsed some reasons why it doesn't in today's economy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fair enough. Its just been my experience that treatment plans are far far more lucrative. Companies go for low hanging fruit that has a high return. Most companies won't invest unless there is 1 billion in profit. Only then will they take a chance. In order for companies to invest in a vaccine that doesn't have a huge return the vaccine will need to be cheap to make and develop. Virus's tend to mutate and mutate quickly so making a "cheap and easy" vaccine simply isn't the case.

If you can prove me wrong (and I would be very happy if you could) then you should apply for a job at Eli Lilly.

[wacki]

hmkpoker, I don't think you understood what I was trying to say.

[madnak]

That's not about profitability.

You're just saying companies are lazy. They could squeeze more profit, but they don't bother.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
That's not about profitability.

You're just saying companies are lazy.

[/ QUOTE ]

No I'm not.

[ QUOTE ]
They could squeeze more profit, but they don't bother.

[/ QUOTE ]

With 1 million people in the US that are HIV positive, the companies get $20,000 *1,000,000 people * 10 years = $200,000,000,000 every 10 years. Since people will always contract it that number goes up. Now, if everyone gets a vaccine you will need to spread that cost around 265 million people. That means every man woman and child will need to pay $600. Do you really think everyone in the US is willing to pay that? Even if only 20% of the US will buy the vaccine then you will have to pay $3K for something that can be prevented with a condom. Then you have to worry about different strains and having to dish out another $3K for next seasons strain because your neighbor didn't want to pay for the vaccine (or it was against his her beliefs, or that person has a superiority complex, or that person ....) and it mutated.


Are you starting to get the picture?

[madnak]

Why not use 100 years as your figure? It would make your argument look even better.

HIV treatments aren't just free money. And if they were, the competitive element remains. If a competitor comes up with a cure and you're still offering only treatments, all your patients will flock to your competitor. You'll be out of business.

Competitive pressure means the company must serve the consumer or go bust.

And the resources normally put toward HIV treatment might be used more profitably elsewhere.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
Why not use 100 years as your figure?

[/ QUOTE ]

The average HIV patient doesn't live 100 years after contracting the disease.

[ QUOTE ]
Competitive pressure means the company must serve the consumer or go bust.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, the best medication is often freely available in leaf form. But you can't patent a leaf and the FDA won't certify it. So they chemically alter it so they can patent it. They don't care if it's a better or worse performer. Again, it's not about the best product it's about the money.

[ QUOTE ]
If a competitor comes up with a cure and you're still offering only treatments, all your patients will flock to your competitor. You'll be out of business.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds pretty. But the "cheap" cures are in prevention. Even the cheap cures cost billions and they don't alwas work. When they do work you have to give them to everyone or mutations will rise and your cure becomes obsolete.

Now I'm repeating myself....

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
The average HIV patient doesn't live 100 years after contracting the disease.

[/ QUOTE ]

But isn't it profitable to extend their lives to an arbitrary length? Anyhow, if their agenda to get more people infected works the demand will be high enough for them to replace all their patients. With cures there's no new supply!

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Competitive pressure means the company must serve the consumer or go bust.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, the best medication is often freely available in leaf form. But you can't patent a leaf and the FDA won't certify it. So they chemically alter it so they can patent it. They don't care if it's a better or worse performer. Again, it's not about the best product it's about the money.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, that's exactly what I'm saying. Trade restrictions such as patents and drug regulations prevent competition. They allow artificial business models that are designed to hurt the customer. If there were no patents, and no trade restrictions on those leaves, there would be a market for the leaves themselves. And the price of refined versions of the medication would be determined by market. People would even have the option of growing the leaves in their own personal greenhouses if they wanted to!

[ QUOTE ]
Sounds pretty. But the "cheap" cures are in prevention. Even the cheap cures cost billions and they don't alwas work. When they do work you have to give them to everyone or mutations will rise and your cure becomes obsolete.

Now I'm repeating myself....

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree there's a problem in that consumers tend to prefer curative measures over preventative measures. I don't believe this problem can be solved by government. On the contrary, I think government influence in society is largely responsible for the tendency. But that's another subject.

I don't really see how it bears on profitability. Innovation is an ongoing process. So I'm not assuming that they make a cure and that's the end of it. Making the cure gives them profit, but they have to stay ahead of their competitors in the race for innovation to hold onto that profit.

As the topic seems to be reaching toward the idea of perfect health care, I think it's necessary to point out that health care isn't always the most efficient place for resources. Obviously it seems like a harsh position to take, but it's the plain truth. I'd like to know where you draw the line.

Let's assume simplistically that every dollar put into health care goes toward saving lives. There are a lot of lives to be saved. We could dump the whole GDP into health care and every bit of it could be put to good use.

But of course the economy would quickly collapse and in the long run more people would die. Where do you draw the line here? When is it okay to let someone die because the resources are "better allocated elsewhere?" I don't want to get stuck in a position where I look like I value money over human life, so I'm going to ask this question now before I end up having to say "sometimes it's necessary for people to die even when it's preventable."