4 ms·

I think maybe its about time we set up something life the NSF to conduct these trial for the FDA (in the particular case of orphaned and old drugs) and generall

I think maybe its about time we set up something life the NSF to conduct these trial for the FDA (in the particular case of orphaned and old drugs) and generally does a much better job of dealing with the mess that drug trails have come to be. At some point, this knowledge becomes a public good and the conflict of interest presented by those seeking to win approval also being the ones who stand to win a "get a monopoly free card" becomes too great a moral hazard to expect to overcome. There just seems to be something fundamentally wrong with rent seeking someones pain, no matter what legal process led to that result. It feels like something we should have grown out of by now.

reader5000 16y ago
Oh sure another taxpayer funded job-killing GOVERNMENT agency. Don't you understand that the private sector, in combination with absurd patent/monopoly incentivization, is the ideal solution to all human need?
- TheAmazingIdiot 16y ago
  I can imagine privately owned roads. Toll booths every few miles sound far fetched? Try looking at midevil europe, and that would be the US you would have. We've already did the private fire departments with medallions. Doesn't exactly work out when the non-medallioned house next door is on fire. Or, we've read the articles about the for-profit prison systems. And they were even buying a judge to sentence juve offenders to the max. Yes, private stuff does make sense. So does public.
  - camiller 16y ago
    I think reader5000 was being sarcastic...
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
CWuestefeld 16y ago
I think maybe its about time we set up something life the NSF to conduct these trial for the FDA This would be a disaster. It really is expensive to test drugs, and so pharma companies must carefully consider which ones are worth pursuing. If they no longer need to bear the cost, then they'll just throw everything at the agency. Then the agency will either fall behind, so that good new drugs never get approved, or it will tremendously balloon the costs of testing (and we're already complaining about those costs).
- _delirium 16y ago
  I read the comment as proposing only that the NSF (or someone) run the trials for old drugs that are already widely used, in lieu of the current odd system of re-monopolizing drugs that had previously been widely available as generics. For new drugs hoping to win approval, which are inventions and are already granted monopolies via patents, things could still work the current way.
hammock 16y ago
This is not a story of greed, it's a story of how product patents are effed up. Interesting fact did you know that it used to be process patents only, now it's product patents?

reader5000 16y ago

Oh sure another taxpayer funded job-killing GOVERNMENT agency. Don't you understand that the private sector, in combination with absurd patent/monopoly incentivization, is the ideal solution to all human need?

TheAmazingIdiot 16y ago
I can imagine privately owned roads. Toll booths every few miles sound far fetched? Try looking at midevil europe, and that would be the US you would have. We've already did the private fire departments with medallions. Doesn't exactly work out when the non-medallioned house next door is on fire. Or, we've read the articles about the for-profit prison systems. And they were even buying a judge to sentence juve offenders to the max. Yes, private stuff does make sense. So does public.
- camiller 16y ago
  I think reader5000 was being sarcastic...

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

CWuestefeld 16y ago

I think maybe its about time we set up something life the NSF to conduct these trial for the FDA This would be a disaster. It really is expensive to test drugs, and so pharma companies must carefully consider which ones are worth pursuing. If they no longer need to bear the cost, then they'll just throw everything at the agency. Then the agency will either fall behind, so that good new drugs never get approved, or it will tremendously balloon the costs of testing (and we're already complaining about those costs).

_delirium 16y ago
I read the comment as proposing only that the NSF (or someone) run the trials for old drugs that are already widely used, in lieu of the current odd system of re-monopolizing drugs that had previously been widely available as generics. For new drugs hoping to win approval, which are inventions and are already granted monopolies via patents, things could still work the current way.

hammock 16y ago

This is not a story of greed, it's a story of how product patents are effed up. Interesting fact did you know that it used to be process patents only, now it's product patents?