The Waste, the Waste
Some good points made in the discussion to a post on the low cost-effectiveness of government-funded medical research:
Writing in The Scientist Frederick Sachs argues that the large increase in funding for the US National Institutes of Health did not produce a commensurate increase in scientific productivity as measured by papers published....
Geez. An inefficient, ineffective, socialist, bureaucratic research system (as measured by its failure to cure most anything over 40 years) hits diminishing returns...
Am I the only one not surprised?
Sublimate it as rapidly as possible into a free-market, sink or swim, enterprise and maybe we will see something good come of it.
That point is made at greater length and in greater detail in the comments by those who work inside the system. It's an important point for people with an eye on the next few decades of progress - if you want to see significant results in the advancement of human longevity, merely throwing resources at the problem is inadequate in and of itself. Without the right incentives, accountability, freedom and community, there will be immense waste, and the immense cost of missed opportunity. All spending by centralized government bodies is of that nature; no incentives for progress, no accountability for failure to achieve, and every incentive to keep money flowing above all else. Human nature leads to an inevitable mess - and we should be smarter than that by now.
It should not be at all surprising to see bloated funding and no benefit to show for the increase - that's the story across the board in government programs, and we all suffer for it.
Technorati tags: libertarian, medical research, politics
Well, it seems that all the research done on Vit. E was bungled, because the dosages were too low. At least someone finally published what I've known all along, but this invalidates pretty much EVERY STUDY DONE! Furthermore, it seems that a lot of things got published that didn't bother to actually follow the scientific method!
ARRRGH!
"
“The methodology used in almost all past clinical trials of vitamin E has been fatally flawed,” said Frei, one of the world’s leading experts on antioxidants and disease. “These trials supposedly addressed the hypothesis that reducing oxidative stress could reduce cardiovascular disease. But oxidative stress was never measured in these trials, and therefore we don’t know whether it was actually reduced or not. The hypothesis was never really tested.” "
Here is the URL:
http://www.physorg.com/news109673757.html
Well, good luck trying to sunder the FDA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rofecoxib
Because of the Vioxx controversy, some people thing the FDA does not do enough to maintain the safety of its products.