Comment by CommanderData
2 years ago
Even if there were a strong link between HSV and Dementia, I don't believe our governments would fast track or fund such research because their priorities.
It would be nice if Gates or Elon Musk would bring the worlds attention to these issues and if something positive comes out of it would be a massive net positive to humanity.
priorities are pretty clear. we spent <$20B on the covid vaccine, operation warp speed. ukraine received $75B in the last year from the u. s. if it was the same price, we could have solved 4 highly infectious diseases in just the last year. i’m not trying to get political on that specific war; just military in general is where the money goes
Imagine if, after the first oil crisis, the US had earmarked 10% of the military’s middle east budget to R&D for energy independence.
We would have solved the global warming problem by the mid 1990’s.
A sufficient number of nuclear power plants would have cost a lot less than that.
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Note that those $20B were not for research but for production and rollout. The research costs (for BioNTech) were in the order of only $1B or two. Source (in German): https://archive.is/L5oFm
Though, obviously, no research lives in a vacuum. Companies profit from universities and the larger educational system, from other researchers laying the groundwork over the years etc.
Well, the US spends far more on elder care than on the military, so you should say that that is where the money goes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_S...
And we had multiple covid vaccines within under a year, with holdups being studying effects and approvals. While I agree we overspend on military, I don't think there's evidence spending more money would have improved the covid vaccine situation.
Then the opposite would be true? Less money we would have got the same outcome. Slightly nonsensical.
We need time and more people looking at the issue = money.