Bush's 4th veto of his presidency is a good one

[ymu]

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His behavior was fraud and would be just as illegal in the absence of a regulatory body. It sounds like the medical journals changed their publishing standards on their own. All your regulatory body did was revoke his license, which is an inconsequential action, since after his reputation was ruined, no one would hire him anyway.

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Wakefield is still conning people. He won't be struck off until the hearing finishes in October. There's no doubt about the outcome. He also has massive public support thanks to his propaganda and financial backers. It'll take years to restore public confidence regardless of the science. Standard propaganda tactic - people believe the "facts" they heard first; it's harder to overcome false information than it is to implant new ideas.

And as I already said, the major medical journals changed policy when the NEJM and a well-respected medic were conned into publishing an enthusiastic editorial on Vioxx which was eventually withdrawn. The serious side effects mostly showed up in the second 6 months of their one year trial, so they published the first 6 months worth and pretended there was no more data. Serious [censored] for a painkiller which is typically used long-term in for chronic conditions. The FDA then sacked one of their experts for pointing out that the same serious side effects might affect other "me too" drugs made by other companies. It turns out he was right. Reassuring, huh? There were even Congressional hearings on the conduct of Merck and the FDA. Guess you missed it.

More reading for you (on how regulation is subverted by financial interests): http://www.transparency.org/global_p...tical_industry

If you think it's OK for corporations to make money charging folk a fortune to be poisoned, just come out and say it. Or come up with convincing evidence that it isn't common. Good luck with that. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[ymu]

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Bush vetoed a "children's health bill" today. this bill utilizes the classic political trick of naming a bill in some innocuous way that sounds wonderful for all, like the "clean air and water" act which provided access to timber for logging companies.

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I've often been told that Americans have no sense of irony, but I never believed it before.


Did you read any of the links Nate? How do you justify this?
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It's the money, dummy

This prospectus is addressed primarily to drug companies, with good reason. One of them now has 10 products with more than $1bn in sales each, and some 165 million people worldwide take its medicines. Its market capitalisation recently passed that of Microsoft Corporation and is second only to that of General Electric. In 2000, the top nine drug companies in the United States had over $155bn in revenue. The top executives in these companies were paid between $3m and $17m plus stock options valued between $11m and $73m. Drug companies have the cake, and they are eating it too. Put simply, we want a piece of that cake.

If you are not a member of this elite club, you may want to skip to table 3, where we list our bargain basement services. Once we have paid off our mortgages, we will consider pro bono work. Meanwhile, if you would like our help, please make sure to send us your credit card number and bank balance.

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Your capacity for tangent continues to amaze me. The profits made by pharma are unrelated to the "Children's Health Bill". You continue to brilliantly enhance your persona of ignorant socialist euro-college kid. It's pretty funny.

Nevertheless, your quoted excerpt (which you didn't link to by the way) is also funny in an of itself.

Can I ask you, do you understand the difference between revenue and profit? Here's a hint: Exxon Mobil generates the most revenue of any company in a quarter. Do they generate the best return on investment? (hint: no)

Also, do you believe that profit in an of itself is evil?
Hopefully you've read my response explaining why it is important to drug companies to profit from their endeavors and why that means your socialist country is free-riding on american research.

natedogg

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You understand what market capitalisation is, right?

And you understand that profits are over and above costs, right? They're what the unproductive shareholders take home after everyone has been (more or less) well remunerated for a job (more or less) well done.

Why do you think that the American people should be forced to fork out, on average, an extra $3k/year than anyone else in the world for the sake of shareholders? Ok, so the stock market pays for their pensions, but surely they should be able to choose what to do with that $3k/year - maybe they don't want it invested in a bunch of unregulated crooks who might run off with the life savings?

Be honest now Nate. It's not choice is it? It's propaganda.

[ymu]

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You continue to brilliantly enhance your persona of ignorant socialist euro-college kid. It's pretty funny.
...
Hopefully you've read my response explaining why it is important to drug companies to profit from their endeavors and why that means your socialist country is free-riding on american research.


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Heh heh. The evil socialism thang. I haven't said I'm a socialist - mainly because I'm not. I spend plenty of time elsewhere taking the piss out of cartoon lefties. This is a refreshing change. It's ideologues who rely on propaganda rather than research and careful thought that I have an issue with.

I'm a medical statistician with a first degree in politics and economics; a few weeks ago I taught a workshop at the annual conference for the worldwide research staff of the 3rd largest global Pharma company; they're testing my ethical resolve by asking me to do more training for them at a far higher proportion of my income than I am comfortable to let them provide (I value my reputation as an independent scientist, you see).

And the UK has never had a mainstream socialist party, let alone government. LOL indeed. The Labour party has long been said to owe more to Methodism than Socialism, and nu-Labour (the Blair/Brown project) has lost even that tenuous link to social responsibility.

Propaganda is one thing, but blatantly ridiculous straw men expose the weaknesses of your argument every bit as much as the persistent resort to ad hominem.

[pvn]

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Heh heh. The evil socialism thang. I haven't said I'm a socialist - mainly because I'm not.

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Actually, you are. You're supporting centrally-planned, coercively funded activities. That makes you a socialist. Sorry.

[ymu]

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Heh heh. The evil socialism thang. I haven't said I'm a socialist - mainly because I'm not.

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Actually, you are. You're supporting centrally-planned, coercively funded activities. That makes you a socialist. Sorry.

[/ QUOTE ]Not quite. In the US propaganda lexicon, where "liberal" is used interchageably with "communist", maybe. But over here we use an actual grown-up political lexicon. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[RR]

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I'm a medical statistician with a first degree in politics and economics

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What is a first degree? You have demonstrated in this thread you have little to no understanding of economics. If you are interested in some entry level texts to get a basic understanding of market based economics I can recommend some that undergraduates use.

[VarlosZ]

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Heh heh. The evil socialism thang. I haven't said I'm a socialist - mainly because I'm not.

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Actually, you are. You're supporting centrally-planned, coercively funded activities. That makes you a socialist. Sorry.

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You can use those words however you want, but if that's how you define "socialist," no one else is going to know what the hell you're talking about.

[pvn]

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Heh heh. The evil socialism thang. I haven't said I'm a socialist - mainly because I'm not.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, you are. You're supporting centrally-planned, coercively funded activities. That makes you a socialist. Sorry.

[/ QUOTE ]Not quite. In the US propaganda lexicon, where "liberal" is used interchageably with "communist", maybe. But over here we use an actual grown-up political lexicon. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

so·cial·ism (sō'shə-lĭz'əm) n.

1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

The only debate is to *what degree* you espouse this. In your grown-up political lexicon, all of the various parties you have are actually socialists. They merely disagree about which things should be socialized first.

[BuddyQ]

ymu,
This:[ QUOTE ]
This prospectus is addressed primarily to drug companies, with good reason. One of them now has 10 products with more than $1bn in sales each, and some 165 million people worldwide take its medicines. Its market capitalisation recently passed that of Microsoft Corporation and is second only to that of General Electric. In 2000, the top nine drug companies in the United States had over $155bn in revenue. The top executives in these companies were paid between $3m and $17m plus stock options valued between $11m and $73m. Drug companies have the cake, and they are eating it too. Put simply, we want a piece of that cake. If you are not a member of this elite club, you may want to skip to table 3, where we list our bargain basement services. Once we have paid off our mortgages, we will consider pro bono work. Meanwhile, if you would like our help, please make sure to send us your credit card number and bank balance.

[/ QUOTE ]
Does not in any way refute This:[ QUOTE ]
You're becoming ridiculous, so I'll give you the quick summary, even though you failed to provide the calculation you claim is so easy to do.

If a company wants to be in business, they need to make a profit. In fact, they need to profit MORE than a safer alternative such as government bonds or other, safer companies. They need investors to buy a share and take on the risk because very few companies can run on the angel investor who is willing to pony up the money it takes.

When it comes to new drugs, pharma spends hundreds of millions per drug title to get it all the way to market, and most of them *fail*. In america, they get patent protection from generics and can charge whatever the market will bear for a 7 year period. sometimes they can finagle an extension but basically they get 7 years to recoup their losses on the other drugs they tried to develop.

Once they have the drug developed it only costs a few pennies to make a unit. They can sell drugs to your socialist country under price control laws ONLY because it is a marginal extra profit on the returns they make here in america. If America has the price controls of other socialist countries... the company would shut down for lack of profit and lack of investment. It's a very simple calculation. If capital can get a better return elsewhere, it will. This would leave pharmas in the cold, closing up shop. Leaving you without Lipitor or take your pick.

You benefit from the profits of drug companies in america. The "obscene" profits you reference are nonexistent. Research the returns on pharma companies. they are in line with the rest of the S&P 500.

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Do you have any real, non-rhetorical rebuttal for the above?

[VarlosZ]

pvn, you do realize that you're using the word "socialist" in a very unusual manner, yes? And that every time you use it in that way, you're going to have to stop and explain what you mean if you want be understood?

Assuming the answer is yes, wouldn't it be clearer just to say what you don't like about governments or mixed economies? I think it would be less confusing, and would help to avoid having the discussion devolve into an argument about semantics -- i.e, instead of arguing about the proper definition of a "socialist," it's better to argue about the implications of the things which we might happen to label as socialist.