Comment by chris_wot

3 years ago

I’m sorry, but that’s a non sequitur. The alternative is not that the drug wasn’t produced. It is that the drug wasn’t developed by private enterprise.

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chris_wot

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brigandish  3 years ago

Please don't give insincere apologies, they're rhetorically weak and pairing insincerity with something that should be sincere isn't a good look.

Which segues nicely to this pairing of public funding and private enterprise. No, if the drug wouldn't be sold for a profit then the incentive to make it wouldn't exist and the funds would not be applied for and the ironic pairing - if it is ironic, which I don't think it is - wouldn't exist either.

Unless we're going to believe that researchers go through the mill of applying for funding and doing research simply to get the funding and stay in badly paid employment?

  • pmyteh  3 years ago

    I don't know about medical research, but that's exactly what the rest of us in universities do.

    • astrange  3 years ago

      You get social rewards like titles, getting into vicious personal arguments over personal things, and being able to reject younger researchers’ work in peer review if it would disprove yours.

      Can’t displace Chomsky as a famous linguist if he writes a letter to everyone’s dissertation committee if they criticize him.

    • brigandish  3 years ago

      Academic research is valuable, as is the research done by commercial entities. They're really not comparable in their intent though, and that's a good thing.

  • chris_wot  3 years ago

    Your response assumes that all medical research is done solely to make a profit.

    • brigandish  3 years ago

      It's not an assumption, it was in the example I responded to:

      > When he was asked what the device would cost, he cheerily replied "whatever the market will bear."

      I also do not need to assume that companies undertaking research are doing it for profit as that is their reason for being companies, and even in the case of research being not directly undertaken for profit, that research - if useful - will go into drugs that are then sold with the intention of making a profit. Not solely, whether cynically or altruistically, the hope will be that the drug is effective.