Way back, there was some discussion around keeping public money out of medical research.
http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthr...ical+marijuana
The basic argument was the government should keep its nose out of funding research so private companies could profit. Anyway, I thought this was an interesting article that really drives home the point that public money very definitely has a place in medical research. I'd be interested in what the usual crew of hard right wingers think on the subject when its not mj, but a cancer treatment.
Quote:
In other words, the drug works by revving up the engines of normal cells, allowing them to work normally and driving cancer cells to commit suicide.
"This is the holy grail of cancer therapeutics -- how to kill the cancer cells and spare normal cells," Dr. Michelakis said.
Dario Altieri, a professor in the department of cancer biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Mass., said the research is "exciting" and that DCA has a lot of potential.
Dr. Altieri said DCA needs to move quickly from the lab into human testing. But he cautioned that there is a real possibility that will not happen, largely for economic reasons.
There is no longer a patent on DCA, meaning it is not owned by any one company. As a result, there is little chance of making a large profit, even if the drug works remarkably well, and hence no incentive for pharmaceutical companies to invest in research.
Dr. Michelakis acknowledged this is a real practical problem, but he expressed hope that public funding bodies like the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (which funded the lab study) will step in.
"Nobody is going to make a billion dollars from this drug," Dr. Michelakis said. "But maybe it will help a lot of people with cancer."
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Link:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...andHealth/home
Argument for public money in health research
