Genomics Impact On US Economy Approaches $1 Trillion

sciencehabit writes "Despite a slow economy, business in genomics has boomed and has directly and indirectly boosted the U.S. economy by $965 billion since 1988, according to a new study (pdf). In 2012 alone, genomics-related research and development, along with relevant industry activities, contributed $31 billion to the U.S. gross national product and helped support 152,000 jobs, the biomedical funding advocacy group United for Medical Research announced today in Washington, D.C. Based on total U.S. spending, the country gets $65 back for every $1 it spends on the field."

Comments

Re:This is FUD

[Samantha Wright]

No, it's more like "please don't stop funding science, specifically this one part."

of course...

[stenvar]

I think public funding of basic research is one of the few areas where the federal government is justified in spending significant amounts of money.

But "generating economic impact" is a useless measure; the federal government could create a trillion dollars of economic impact by forcing everybody to burn down their houses or by simply forcing everybody to pay twice as much for their health care (well, they are trying the latter), but we wouldn't be better off as a result.

Re:This is FUD

[Samantha Wright]

This is about the human genome, you goof, not crops. The money is from medical innovations. RTFA!

Re:This is FUD

[Mitchell314]

Besides better understanding of ourselves, vastly improved drugs, methods to understand and predict inherited diseases, risk factor management, and more effective treatments, what has genomics done for us?