Ah, this is what I get for not being precise. I was thinking of the "all the time" qualifier in the parent rant.
I find these sorts of accusations amusing since I am a research scientist myself and work for industry. My experience is simply that people are people everywhere. You get good and bad in science -- for example, scientists who would do and say anything for a little face time in front the the press, and scientists who will lay their career on the line to fight business decisions with bad medical consequences.
But the notion that corruption is the norm in industry is a sign of maybe a bit of ignorance and paranoia?
I do not see this (the decision to invest in most profitable areas) as a shame of capitalist pharma R&D. The simple fact is that we as a society benefit from the cures and therapies they do invest in. If there are diseases and conditions that we as a society care about but that are not profitable to invest in, then we can publicly fund them, either by incentivizing for-profit organizations or by funding those activities elsewhere. Expecting investors to, in essence, voluntarily tax themselves at a higher rate by spending their money on non-profitable R&D would only encourage them to invest elsewhere.
The iphone DOESN'T look look like it will be a future winner. Don't get me wrong, they've got a great product, but they are going to have a tough time venturing outside of the teenage "OMG ITS SO CUTE" market with this. I dunno. In my (very large) company, a number of employees walk around with personal iPhones -- the comments I've heard from directors upwards indicates a significant degree of lust. Certainly, iPhone never had a shot without Exchange. Now... it will be interesting.
IF and ONLY if they had actually included a full qwerty keyboard with this would they have had a shot. I can type on my blackberry (7520, and nextel can have it when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers) in the dark, without looking at it, with one hand. Blackberry user here too for about two years and I generally prefer qwerty also. Just bought an iTouch because of, well let's be honest here, the above mentioned lust factor and because I really don't want a second phone. I've been using my iTouch for email over wi-fi for about two weeks, all personal stuff (gmail and such). It works, much better than I'd have guessed, and I find that I can type at roughly the same rate as on my BBerry because of fewer visibility issues and because, again let's be honest, the BBerry keyboard is so compact that I probably mistype one letter in about 10 and have to work with their clunky navigation system to revise.
Its quick, its very VERY durable, and, most importantly, it LOOKS like a business tool. I give you the last two. I've been hoping to break my BBerry for a while so I can upgrade. No luck. And yes, it looks like a business tool. Quick? I have no idea what you are referring to unless it is the famous BBerry response to emails where the "Sent by Blackberry" sig is longer than the rest of the email. What it really is is convenient -- take it anywhere and you have a minimal tether to the office.
the ability to watch youtube videos or have a really shiny thing clipped to your belt really doesn't have that much appeal. Agreed. However, the feature set is much broader.
"As far as I know, none of those programs have been compulsory. At least not in civilised countries."
I'm no expert on this subject, but my undergraduate degree was in microbiology so I brushed up against this topic in a few courses. The US has used various forms of compulsory vaccination, and Britain historically used compulsory vaccination for at least smallpox. Also, from a personal standpoint, my older sister belonged to one of the last age groups required to receive the smallpox vaccine in the US to attend public school. Granted, there typically were exemptions so the systems weren't compulsory in an absolute sense, but the exemptions were narrow, and I still remember how angry my parents were -- being forced to either vaccinate their daughter or to lie on the exemption request forms.
"And actually the fact that you don't need to immunise the whole herd (good choice of phrase whilst arguing with Libertarians btw) means it doesn't need to be. You're better off advertising the benefits and offering it for free. That way you should get enough people to make it work."
When the smallpox vaccines were first released, they were nowhere near as effective as they became later and the side effects could be serious, and if you read through the newspapers from the late 1800's, it's pretty clear that many people responded to the vaccine with ignorant skepticism or a reluctance to take the personal risks. Had governments not stepped in . . . well, everyone dies eventually. Let's just say a lot of people would have died earlier.
Granted, we live in different times. Smallpox? Gone. Polio, mumps, measles? Effectively gone in most parts of the world. So why not allow people nowadays to choose for themselves? Ok, sure -- everyone is for personal freedom when there are no costs to others. But if the percentage of people who are vaccinated drops below the preventative threshold and we start seeing outbreaks again, I personally am not going to particularly care about the absolutism of the individual's right to decide.
"Hell the only people who die horribly are the ones that turned you down, so who cares."
For example, the parents or guardians of those that can't be immunized, or immunized as effectively, like infants? Or people that feel if real risk is entailed by individuals for the benefit of the whole, then perhaps it should be shouldered evenly? Or people who recognize that the decision to administer attenuated vaccines (e.g. Sabine) de facto affects everyone because they are transmitted from recipients to non-recipients by standard transmission routes (e.g. fecal-oral) and therefore the decision to vaccinate or not is inherently a public decision.
"Then again, maybe there is some situation where I'd force people, I just can't think of it offhand. But the point of Ron Paul is that he's a Libertarian so he doesn't believe in taking away rights from the individual to benefit the community under any circumstances on a point of principle. Which I can respect, even if I don't agree with him 100%t"
I suspect we are closer to agreement on this subject than might appear at first glance. However, I am no libertarian on this topic. Probably like many of the older members here, I've known older family members who died or were disfigured by some of the diseases we are talking about. I can also tell you for certainty that most of the younger generation are ignorant of the cost in life and quality of life that these epidemics entailed, or the risks associated with modern vaccination programs. As such, I have little faith in the public's ability to reach the right decision in the time of epidemiological disaster, without some form of government pressure. But perhaps we will never face a real outbreak again and we will never be forced to make hard decision between the rights of individuals vs. the public good.
"I don't like the idea of forced vaccination. More importantly, I don't think it would work. If people don't believe a vaccination is safe they'll find some way to avoid it. Personally I'd take the vaccination if some terrorist group weaponized it, but the pros and cons of doing so seem to be sufficiently well balance that I don't agree with forcing other people to do do."
Most folks I know who take this position are largely ignorant of how serious infectious diseases such as smallpox were or how important the concept of herd immunity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity is to the overall population. A successful immunization program does not require that everyone be immunized but it does require that most individuals be immunized. Government programs have been successful in this regard. And, yes, there are potential risks and drawbacks to immunization, but the benefits to the community as a whole vastly outweigh those risks.
First, there is a clinical difference between being overweight (BMI 25 - 30) and being obsese (BMI >= 30), and the publication notes the various risks associated with both categories. Second, statistics published in JAMA based on 2.3 million subjects (NHANES) probably deserve just a moment of consideration and thought before sweeping them under the table, no?
Big pharma is interested in cancer and there is a lot of money to be made, and part of the reason is that barrier for entry with cancer therapeutics is much lower--for instance, cancer compounds can have all sorts of adverse side effects and liabilities that simply aren't tolerated for many other therapeutics. The personalization of cancers is not as large of an issue as you make it to be, although this is changing as our understanding of cancer prognosis, stratification, and therapy prediction increases (e.g. as with breast cancer, HER2 and EGFR).
As far as interest in curing vs. preventing diseases, pharmas are companies and they are interested in returning a profit to their investors--if they can make it by curing a disease, so be it. But you are right in that there is a lot of money to be made when a disease has to be treated as a chronic condition.
That said, nothing prevents you or your respective government from investing in medical research that might be viewed as less lucrative to a traditional pharma--so why it has to always be portrayed as "us against those selfish bastards" instead of "us alongside the selfish bastards" baffles me.
(disclaimer: I work in the research industry for big pharma)
The rats are killed by being placed into a box with CO2 (from a dry-ice chamber). That's probably a more peaceful death than I can expect.
Aside: I'm not against animal research, but as a former animal researcher who euthanized rodents I have to say that this is a rotten way to kill animals. CO2 euthanasia is not quick, the animals are clearly in distress (they die gasping for air, clawing at the container edges, rolling in their urine and feces). I can only imagine that CO2 has become popular because it sounds nice--you know, you put the animals to sleep with some gas that they breath all the time anyway.
Better by far is cervical dislocation--a quick snap of the neck and the animal falls senseless. Unfortunately, that practice is increasingly viewed as barbaric and is discouraged in many places. It's a strange world we live in where we care less about the actual suffering of the animal than how humane we appear to be.
Pharmaceuticals are a perfect example; they waste 80% of their income outside research. They spend more than twice as much on marketing and administration as they do on R&D. The protection breeds the expense which makes the protection necessary for the protected business model.
"Waste" is presumptive, although certainly they spend a lot more than they do on research.
Then offer them a 200% payback. Outright. Instead of a patent creating a monopoly, let it be worth a 200% ROI for the patent holder if it gets used in products to a certain amount within the next five (or ten, or thirty) years. Paid by the patent office, financed through ordinary state financing rather than a hidden economic tax in the incarnation of monopoly pricing. You get rid of the customer/inventor conflict relationship, small inventors get paid even if some big company rips them off, etc.
Interesting suggestion. It strikes me that a payout conditional on sufficient and demonstrable market adoption that also has to wait for X number of years after the product launch may not be all that great an incentive to investors. It's also not clear how it would keep costs down, since I can see research becoming increasingly expensive given the payout model.
Besides, if you are going to get the state involved at this level, why not go all the way and just have them fund research?
Economic incentives for R&D can take many forms. State protected monopolies has to be about the most inefficient and economically damaging model conceivable.
You have real-world counter examples that work better?
I'm ignorant when it comes to the economics, so maybe you have good points and I just don't see them. However, I've worked in Pharma R&D and currently interact with, e.g., marketing and sales so I see a bit of the non-R&D needs and expenditures. And I hear outsiders moan and complain about pharma prices all the time, sometimes throwing out suggestions that will "fix" the current costs of drugs--ranging from new patent standards to price fixing. Virtually all of these suggestions proceed from the assumption that drugs can be discovered, developed and distributed at much lower costs than they are now.
I have only one person's perspective to offer, no doubt biased from years of working in pharma, but here it is: The internal pressures to streamline in the interests of a better profit margin are substantial. There is also substantial waste, but I have a hard time imagining it is exceptional in companies as large and global as pharmas.
Scientists declare themselves openminded, but then they define "openminded" as accepting of anything that doesn't threaten their existing view and opinions about what they believe. If you want to see a viscious attack on anothers reputation, just look at the scientific world, they put theologins and politicians to shame by comparison. No, if you are a scientist you had better have pretty thick skin if you want to challenge the status quo. There is no room in scientific circle for multiple leading theories, there is "one true religion" and the rest are all crackpot theories.
I don't know that they put theologians and politicians to shame, per se. I've seen ugly fights there too:) But you're right, science is no bastion of open-mindedness either.
A perfect case in point is the current debate over teaching evolution in public schools. You'd think that it was a religious debate on both sides, the way they act. Since they currently have the upper hand, they are determined not to give any ground, the mere mention that evolution has some competing theories is completely unacceptable, it must be taught as absolute fact with no questioning allowed. We simply can't allow young impressionable minds access to any facts that might contradict evolution, they might start questioning the "one true religion", and the scientific community can't bear the thought of that.
There are certainly evolutionists that hold the view you describe, but they are not so monolithic in their attitudes (see the NCSE website, for instance). Bear in mind that the evolution fight for the past several years has been to keep evolution in the classroom, or to prevent it being watered down by indirect attacks (e.g. intelligent design theory). In other words, it's been largely a defensive fight. But that said, I think what you would find, were you to speak to evolution proponents, is that they do not object, per se, to religion in schools. You want to have a religion/philosophy/epistemology course? Go for it. Just don't put it in a science classroom. It's not science and it has no place there. If this isn't absolutely clear, then maybe we need to do a better job teaching what science is in the classroom.
There is no ban on stem cell research in the US!!! There is only a limitation on government funding of some specific types of stem cells.
I think there should be limits on all sorts of government funding. I have no idea on why everyone is suddenly for unlimited government funding of the drug industry.
Unlimited funding for the drug industry? Heh. And here I was just noticing how our research dept just had to cut travel funds again to stay in budget. You'll have to tell me where this pot of greenback goodness can be found.:)
Why does it make sense that popular athletes, actors,
and musicians make hundreds of millions of dollars while scientists
researching diseases and solutions to the energy crisis make far
less and risk having their research sent overseas to be done for
even less money?
YMMV and all that, but to me it makes sense. For one, there's a lot
less risk in pursuing a career in science. Looking back, I'd say
the main requirement is persistence--you have (in the US) 10-12
years of post high school education and then maybe a few extra years
thrown in for postdoc. During this time, you can expected to be
treated (and paid) as your typical minion. After that, the jobs
aren't exactly plentiful, but if you chose your degree with some
minor forethought, you should be employable. At that point, you can
choose broadly between job security and lower pay in academia or
higher pay and less job security in industry.
In any case, it's not that hard. Science doesn't require any
great social or communication skills or, frankly, much in the way of
intelligence either (which is not to say that having these traits
doesn't help). Also, oversees competition isn't (IMO) much of a
concern, but I concede ignorance outside my discipline.
Compare this to athletes, actors (or TV newscasters, or corporate
execs, etc.) where only a handful actually win high-profile and high
paying positions. Whole different scale of risk, IMO.
But as another poster said, it's a capitalism thing too so if you're
not into that, well, it probably still won't make a lot of sense:)
As someone who's experience runs counter to this . . .
Most people want to make the most money they can. The way you make the most money you can in a corporation is to one way or another surpass your coworkers, to get the credit for successes weather you deserve it or not, and shift blame for failure away from you even if you deserve it.
I've seen this backfire in the most entertaining fashion, and I've also seen those who aren't interested in playing corporate games do quite well financially. I think a lot depends on the nature of your org, or your niche in your org
Idealist geeks don't play this game well. They are just glad to get a paycheck and if someone lets them sit at their computer in peace. Its a key reason the people in marketing and sales tend to rocket in to upper management, that and geeks tend to lack social skills to survive in management.
That last little qualifier there is not a small thing. Communication skills are essential to management, and given the nature of the responsibilities as one moves up the ladder, I don't think that's a bad thing. If you are a antisocial geek, you may be highly valued but in my company they'll put you in a nice buffered room in R&D (or some other tech spot) where you can't harm anyone with your mouth or mannerisms.
The best way to make money in a company is everyone works together and make great products and everyone makes lots of money and then there is a lot to spread around...
Agreed. And if you get the right management in place and retain them, you foster the sort of environment where this is possible, I think.
Oh, and don't give the luzer's Admin access. No matter what. The first thing they do is disable any security settings or security programs that they think might get in the way.
Being a luzer myself I always find this talk interesting. In my company, typically, every time IT goes through some sort of major upgrade every system gets locked down (admin privledges stripped, etc). Within a couple of months, the local support groups start unlocking the machines, first to those who seem to be least likely to screw the system up, and then finally to anyone who finds themselves inconvenienced and vocal. I'm not saying this is good policy, just that I've seen this game play out this way a number of times.
From the luzers perspective, I think one of the problems is that, ultimately, IT doesn't directly make the company money. IT is a service org--no different from physical facilities or grounds crew. They make it possible for a company to function or, by incompetence or tenacity, they actively prevent such from happening. Or to put it differently, the luzers see themselves as performing the tasks that make the products (or provide external services) that ultimately make the company money. Maybe that explains some of the attitude difference.
In any case, I'm sure it's possible to secure a system and still allow work to be done, and I'm sure you can tell me how incompetent IT is at my company, and hey, you may be right. What do I know? All I can tell you is that what I have seen are systems locked down so tightly that only basic, common apps like MS products run and where real work is impeded. And I have to wonder if this constitutes a real improvement for a company?
"And the caffeine in coffee and chocolate ISN'T natural? Natural != healthy."
This reminds me . . . a couple of years ago I was on an airplane--Icelandair I think--and they had an inflight advertisement for Botox. Anyway, to better peddle the therapy, the talking head emphasized that Botox was "all natural." I had to laugh. The claim was certainly true (yes, the chemical is produced naturally) but by the microbe Clostridium botulinum which produces the most lethal suite of neurotoxins known.
(Aside, I'm not saying Botox therapy is dangerous. Just that it's funny how the term "all natural" gets used."
Not to knock your experience, but you're making an awfully vague recommendation that people be aware of "health issues" from a single, poorly defined, self-assessed situation.
What exactly are people supposed to be aware of? That you got sick while using multiple CRTs? That people in general get sick from over exposure to CRTs? That the risk of illness is large?
For those who whine, "But then there won't be any incentive to innovate!"... GMAFB. Innovation in biotech (and in pretty much every technical field) is done by scientists, not moneymen. And the scientists will continue to do their jobs, whether for prestige or a desire to aid their fellow man or just out of sheer intellectual curiosity. Most of them will do it, BTW, in university labs, not corporate "R&D" shops, just the way they always have.
Universities provide a necessary infusion of discoveries and methodologies into biotech, but that's about as far as I can agree with you.
Couple of random comments:
Don't put scientists on pedestals. Scientists, collectively, are not motivated by sheer intellectual curiosity or altruism. Any number of them are conniving bastards willing to stick it to the Ph.D. next door so long as their pub gets out first or their grant gets funded. In the upper echelons of university research, the bastard to altruist ratio gets pretty high. In general, they're just human beings, no better or worse than the guy working the counter at your local convenience store.
Biotech data is expensive: Properly designed, decently powered studies often exceed the pocketbook of government funding agencies. As such, many of the academic research papers in biotech involve rehashes and re-analyses of the same data sets over and over. This is not by choice; it's simply a consequence of their being unable to do more. Industry is a major player in biotech, and has been for a very long time (can anyone say Taq polymerase?).
Their conclusion? 35 hours per week. Keeps the productivity high, the turn over low, and the company growing at double digit rates nearly every year (or maybe it has been every year).
It doesn't hurt that they have a near lock on the statistical software market and charge punitive licensing fees.
Maybe I missed something, but most people off the street would have no clue about how to code a linux kernel, much less keep their computers from being spam servers. And last time I checked, most programmers aren't exactly GED cases. Yes, years of CS training, while not requisite, are certainly the norm among the best code writers.
If you want to be involved in any sort of real decision making in drug discovery process, plan on starting with a PhD or MD.
What would be the incentive of creating drugs or getting the education to do so?
Ahem, sounds almost identical to most closed-source companies' arguments for years? Lo and behold, open source now has M$FT on a run for their money, literally
That's fine so long as the analogy is valid, yet I'm not convinced. Tell me why opensource software development and manufacturing are comparable to drug discovery and manufacturing and I'll listen.
Being a biological researcher myself, who happens to also be facile with computers (a rarity, believe me), I'll tell you that the difference is small. Trial and error, code and debug, it's all the same. The only difference is the time-frame. Biotech "programmers" just have a bit more leeway for losing days of work on an error than a computer counterpart would. It's the nature of the beast.
Being a biological researcher (whatever that means) does not make one an expert on the pharmaceutical business.
Anyway, I don't buy the analogy. To do drug development you need experts at identifying candidates, experts at drugging candidates, experts at doing the in vitro functional validation, experts to do the in vivo validation and toxicity testing, and all this before the drug even sees a human. These experts are all teams of Ph.D. and they use equipment that you and I can't purchase and store in our basement (unless you are secretly batman). Then there is clinical testing and development of product--figuring out how to deliver a compound internally is its own science--manufacturing and education (marketing).
And sure, some of this is shared with software development, but most isn't. Capital expenditure is enormous. Committment and risk taking are also part of the equation (bear in mind that something like only 1 in 50 drug candidates makes it to market). In short, you have to be willing to fund a research program 10-15 years before you can start to recoup losses.
Maybe if you could convince some of the big pharmaceutical power houses that there was a business model in there somewhere you could interest them, but this isn't something you will ever pull off grassroots style.
So what exactly is the business case for someone like Pfizer or GSK or Merck to start doing things differently???
All technology saves lives.
When used correctly? Maybe. Remember though that "drug" is just a fancy way of saying "poison." You darn well better know what it does in which doseages before you start screwing with people.
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I find these sorts of accusations amusing since I am a research scientist myself and work for industry. My experience is simply that people are people everywhere. You get good and bad in science -- for example, scientists who would do and say anything for a little face time in front the the press, and scientists who will lay their career on the line to fight business decisions with bad medical consequences.
But the notion that corruption is the norm in industry is a sign of maybe a bit of ignorance and paranoia?
Citation please?
I do not see this (the decision to invest in most profitable areas) as a shame of capitalist pharma R&D. The simple fact is that we as a society benefit from the cures and therapies they do invest in. If there are diseases and conditions that we as a society care about but that are not profitable to invest in, then we can publicly fund them, either by incentivizing for-profit organizations or by funding those activities elsewhere. Expecting investors to, in essence, voluntarily tax themselves at a higher rate by spending their money on non-profitable R&D would only encourage them to invest elsewhere.
I'm no expert on this subject, but my undergraduate degree was in microbiology so I brushed up against this topic in a few courses. The US has used various forms of compulsory vaccination, and Britain historically used compulsory vaccination for at least smallpox. Also, from a personal standpoint, my older sister belonged to one of the last age groups required to receive the smallpox vaccine in the US to attend public school. Granted, there typically were exemptions so the systems weren't compulsory in an absolute sense, but the exemptions were narrow, and I still remember how angry my parents were -- being forced to either vaccinate their daughter or to lie on the exemption request forms.
"And actually the fact that you don't need to immunise the whole herd (good choice of phrase whilst arguing with Libertarians btw) means it doesn't need to be. You're better off advertising the benefits and offering it for free. That way you should get enough people to make it work."
When the smallpox vaccines were first released, they were nowhere near as effective as they became later and the side effects could be serious, and if you read through the newspapers from the late 1800's, it's pretty clear that many people responded to the vaccine with ignorant skepticism or a reluctance to take the personal risks. Had governments not stepped in . . . well, everyone dies eventually. Let's just say a lot of people would have died earlier.
Granted, we live in different times. Smallpox? Gone. Polio, mumps, measles? Effectively gone in most parts of the world. So why not allow people nowadays to choose for themselves? Ok, sure -- everyone is for personal freedom when there are no costs to others. But if the percentage of people who are vaccinated drops below the preventative threshold and we start seeing outbreaks again, I personally am not going to particularly care about the absolutism of the individual's right to decide.
"Hell the only people who die horribly are the ones that turned you down, so who cares."
For example, the parents or guardians of those that can't be immunized, or immunized as effectively, like infants? Or people that feel if real risk is entailed by individuals for the benefit of the whole, then perhaps it should be shouldered evenly? Or people who recognize that the decision to administer attenuated vaccines (e.g. Sabine) de facto affects everyone because they are transmitted from recipients to non-recipients by standard transmission routes (e.g. fecal-oral) and therefore the decision to vaccinate or not is inherently a public decision.
"Then again, maybe there is some situation where I'd force people, I just can't think of it offhand. But the point of Ron Paul is that he's a Libertarian so he doesn't believe in taking away rights from the individual to benefit the community under any circumstances on a point of principle. Which I can respect, even if I don't agree with him 100%t"
I suspect we are closer to agreement on this subject than might appear at first glance. However, I am no libertarian on this topic. Probably like many of the older members here, I've known older family members who died or were disfigured by some of the diseases we are talking about. I can also tell you for certainty that most of the younger generation are ignorant of the cost in life and quality of life that these epidemics entailed, or the risks associated with modern vaccination programs. As such, I have little faith in the public's ability to reach the right decision in the time of epidemiological disaster, without some form of government pressure. But perhaps we will never face a real outbreak again and we will never be forced to make hard decision between the rights of individuals vs. the public good.
Most folks I know who take this position are largely ignorant of how serious infectious diseases such as smallpox were or how important the concept of herd immunity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity is to the overall population. A successful immunization program does not require that everyone be immunized but it does require that most individuals be immunized. Government programs have been successful in this regard. And, yes, there are potential risks and drawbacks to immunization, but the benefits to the community as a whole vastly outweigh those risks.
First, there is a clinical difference between being overweight (BMI 25 - 30) and being obsese (BMI >= 30), and the publication notes the various risks associated with both categories. Second, statistics published in JAMA based on 2.3 million subjects (NHANES) probably deserve just a moment of consideration and thought before sweeping them under the table, no?
I know what you mean. I have this car and it not only requires mechanical authorization to turn on, but also to open to doors!
Crazy, I tell ya'!
"I'd just as soon nap as anything on the freeway"
Parallel or perpendicular to traffic?
As far as interest in curing vs. preventing diseases, pharmas are companies and they are interested in returning a profit to their investors--if they can make it by curing a disease, so be it. But you are right in that there is a lot of money to be made when a disease has to be treated as a chronic condition.
That said, nothing prevents you or your respective government from investing in medical research that might be viewed as less lucrative to a traditional pharma--so why it has to always be portrayed as "us against those selfish bastards" instead of "us alongside the selfish bastards" baffles me.
(disclaimer: I work in the research industry for big pharma)
Aside: I'm not against animal research, but as a former animal researcher who euthanized rodents I have to say that this is a rotten way to kill animals. CO2 euthanasia is not quick, the animals are clearly in distress (they die gasping for air, clawing at the container edges, rolling in their urine and feces). I can only imagine that CO2 has become popular because it sounds nice--you know, you put the animals to sleep with some gas that they breath all the time anyway.
Better by far is cervical dislocation--a quick snap of the neck and the animal falls senseless. Unfortunately, that practice is increasingly viewed as barbaric and is discouraged in many places. It's a strange world we live in where we care less about the actual suffering of the animal than how humane we appear to be.
"Waste" is presumptive, although certainly they spend a lot more than they do on research.
Interesting suggestion. It strikes me that a payout conditional on sufficient and demonstrable market adoption that also has to wait for X number of years after the product launch may not be all that great an incentive to investors. It's also not clear how it would keep costs down, since I can see research becoming increasingly expensive given the payout model.
Besides, if you are going to get the state involved at this level, why not go all the way and just have them fund research?
You have real-world counter examples that work better?
I'm ignorant when it comes to the economics, so maybe you have good points and I just don't see them. However, I've worked in Pharma R&D and currently interact with, e.g., marketing and sales so I see a bit of the non-R&D needs and expenditures. And I hear outsiders moan and complain about pharma prices all the time, sometimes throwing out suggestions that will "fix" the current costs of drugs--ranging from new patent standards to price fixing. Virtually all of these suggestions proceed from the assumption that drugs can be discovered, developed and distributed at much lower costs than they are now.
I have only one person's perspective to offer, no doubt biased from years of working in pharma, but here it is: The internal pressures to streamline in the interests of a better profit margin are substantial. There is also substantial waste, but I have a hard time imagining it is exceptional in companies as large and global as pharmas.
I don't know that they put theologians and politicians to shame, per se. I've seen ugly fights there too :) But you're right, science is no bastion of open-mindedness either.
There are certainly evolutionists that hold the view you describe, but they are not so monolithic in their attitudes (see the NCSE website, for instance). Bear in mind that the evolution fight for the past several years has been to keep evolution in the classroom, or to prevent it being watered down by indirect attacks (e.g. intelligent design theory). In other words, it's been largely a defensive fight. But that said, I think what you would find, were you to speak to evolution proponents, is that they do not object, per se, to religion in schools. You want to have a religion/philosophy/epistemology course? Go for it. Just don't put it in a science classroom. It's not science and it has no place there. If this isn't absolutely clear, then maybe we need to do a better job teaching what science is in the classroom.In any case, it's not that hard. Science doesn't require any great social or communication skills or, frankly, much in the way of intelligence either (which is not to say that having these traits doesn't help). Also, oversees competition isn't (IMO) much of a concern, but I concede ignorance outside my discipline.
Compare this to athletes, actors (or TV newscasters, or corporate execs, etc.) where only a handful actually win high-profile and high paying positions. Whole different scale of risk, IMO.
But as another poster said, it's a capitalism thing too so if you're not into that, well, it probably still won't make a lot of sense :)
Most people want to make the most money they can. The way you make the most money you can in a corporation is to one way or another surpass your coworkers, to get the credit for successes weather you deserve it or not, and shift blame for failure away from you even if you deserve it.
I've seen this backfire in the most entertaining fashion, and I've also seen those who aren't interested in playing corporate games do quite well financially. I think a lot depends on the nature of your org, or your niche in your org
Idealist geeks don't play this game well. They are just glad to get a paycheck and if someone lets them sit at their computer in peace. Its a key reason the people in marketing and sales tend to rocket in to upper management, that and geeks tend to lack social skills to survive in management.
That last little qualifier there is not a small thing. Communication skills are essential to management, and given the nature of the responsibilities as one moves up the ladder, I don't think that's a bad thing. If you are a antisocial geek, you may be highly valued but in my company they'll put you in a nice buffered room in R&D (or some other tech spot) where you can't harm anyone with your mouth or mannerisms.
The best way to make money in a company is everyone works together and make great products and everyone makes lots of money and then there is a lot to spread around...
Agreed. And if you get the right management in place and retain them, you foster the sort of environment where this is possible, I think.
Being a luzer myself I always find this talk interesting. In my company, typically, every time IT goes through some sort of major upgrade every system gets locked down (admin privledges stripped, etc). Within a couple of months, the local support groups start unlocking the machines, first to those who seem to be least likely to screw the system up, and then finally to anyone who finds themselves inconvenienced and vocal. I'm not saying this is good policy, just that I've seen this game play out this way a number of times.
From the luzers perspective, I think one of the problems is that, ultimately, IT doesn't directly make the company money. IT is a service org--no different from physical facilities or grounds crew. They make it possible for a company to function or, by incompetence or tenacity, they actively prevent such from happening. Or to put it differently, the luzers see themselves as performing the tasks that make the products (or provide external services) that ultimately make the company money. Maybe that explains some of the attitude difference.
In any case, I'm sure it's possible to secure a system and still allow work to be done, and I'm sure you can tell me how incompetent IT is at my company, and hey, you may be right. What do I know? All I can tell you is that what I have seen are systems locked down so tightly that only basic, common apps like MS products run and where real work is impeded. And I have to wonder if this constitutes a real improvement for a company?
This reminds me . . . a couple of years ago I was on an airplane--Icelandair I think--and they had an inflight advertisement for Botox. Anyway, to better peddle the therapy, the talking head emphasized that Botox was "all natural." I had to laugh. The claim was certainly true (yes, the chemical is produced naturally) but by the microbe Clostridium botulinum which produces the most lethal suite of neurotoxins known.
(Aside, I'm not saying Botox therapy is dangerous. Just that it's funny how the term "all natural" gets used."
What exactly are people supposed to be aware of? That you got sick while using multiple CRTs? That people in general get sick from over exposure to CRTs? That the risk of illness is large?
Testimonials do not drive good medical science.
Universities provide a necessary infusion of discoveries and methodologies into biotech, but that's about as far as I can agree with you.
Couple of random comments:
Don't put scientists on pedestals. Scientists, collectively, are not motivated by sheer intellectual curiosity or altruism. Any number of them are conniving bastards willing to stick it to the Ph.D. next door so long as their pub gets out first or their grant gets funded. In the upper echelons of university research, the bastard to altruist ratio gets pretty high. In general, they're just human beings, no better or worse than the guy working the counter at your local convenience store.
Biotech data is expensive: Properly designed, decently powered studies often exceed the pocketbook of government funding agencies. As such, many of the academic research papers in biotech involve rehashes and re-analyses of the same data sets over and over. This is not by choice; it's simply a consequence of their being unable to do more. Industry is a major player in biotech, and has been for a very long time (can anyone say Taq polymerase?).
It doesn't hurt that they have a near lock on the statistical software market and charge punitive licensing fees.
Ah the sweet joys of monopoly! :)
If you want to be involved in any sort of real decision making in drug discovery process, plan on starting with a PhD or MD.
That's fine so long as the analogy is valid, yet I'm not convinced. Tell me why opensource software development and manufacturing are comparable to drug discovery and manufacturing and I'll listen.
Being a biological researcher (whatever that means) does not make one an expert on the pharmaceutical business.
Anyway, I don't buy the analogy. To do drug development you need experts at identifying candidates, experts at drugging candidates, experts at doing the in vitro functional validation, experts to do the in vivo validation and toxicity testing, and all this before the drug even sees a human. These experts are all teams of Ph.D. and they use equipment that you and I can't purchase and store in our basement (unless you are secretly batman). Then there is clinical testing and development of product--figuring out how to deliver a compound internally is its own science--manufacturing and education (marketing).
And sure, some of this is shared with software development, but most isn't. Capital expenditure is enormous. Committment and risk taking are also part of the equation (bear in mind that something like only 1 in 50 drug candidates makes it to market). In short, you have to be willing to fund a research program 10-15 years before you can start to recoup losses.
Maybe if you could convince some of the big pharmaceutical power houses that there was a business model in there somewhere you could interest them, but this isn't something you will ever pull off grassroots style.
So what exactly is the business case for someone like Pfizer or GSK or Merck to start doing things differently???
When used correctly? Maybe. Remember though that "drug" is just a fancy way of saying "poison." You darn well better know what it does in which doseages before you start screwing with people.