4 ms·
> I'm not trying to rob anyone from the chance of a cure, I'm just saying that to save the most people, resource allocation makes sense. I wasn't arguing with
by gridlockd 7y ago
> I'm not trying to rob anyone from the chance of a cure, I'm just saying that to save the most people, resource allocation makes sense.
I wasn't arguing with resource allocation, I was arguing with your "safety concerns". My takeaway from the article is that with the current framework, any treatment needs to go through countless trials individually, hence it is literally impossible to do any trials to prove the safety or efficacy any treatment that is bespoke to a handful of people.
In our system, it's the responsibility of private companies to productize findings from research and development. As a result, resources aren't allocated to save the most people, they're allocated to make the most money. If you make it expensive to develop treatments for diseases, or you limit the profit that can be made from these treatments, those treatments will never be developed. No pharma company loses money just because people die. They lose money from dead people they could have treated at a profit.
> Now if the incentives are misaligned by virtue of the laws we write, we might need to change those.
The incentives are aligned towards not taking risks. You will not read a headline "Millions of people died as a result of overly strict safety standards". Even though that may very well be the case, it would just be a conjecture. On the other hand, if a handful of people die from some FDA-approved drug, it's all over the news, people will demand consequences, million-dollar lawsuits will be filed, and so on.