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Don't worry governments worldwide (except perhaps China, who knows) are defunding medical research. And they're defunding nothing faster than research into new
by spwa4 1y ago
Don't worry governments worldwide (except perhaps China, who knows) are defunding medical research. And they're defunding nothing faster than research into new antibiotics.
This last bit is partially indirect, since it has the problem that while new antibiotics might very well exist, governments will not approve them unless they have no other choice. Yes, nationalized health insurance providers are the majority of the worldwide market. Second a number of markets (notably India, but certainly not just them) will rip off the medication and not pay a dime for it. This all combines to make it really hard to get people to invest in widely applicable antibiotics. Unfortunately that does include direct subsidies as well (governments do ask big pharma what to subsidize).
So the money is in medicines that fix one particular fatal illness, medications for which no alternatives exist, that are very difficult to produce. This makes getting approval very easy, and allows for high prices.
At least that was the situation ~2016. Since then governments have been "tightening the belt" or whatever they call it and the situation has gotten worse to the point that a number of (especially European) labs now don't exist anymore. Which means even if the defunding is undone they will take a decade to get back up to speed. This is affecting a lot of other things as well. Like the ever-worsening doctor shortage predicted to worsen to the point that even just actual life-saving operations (now ~40% of the total, which is already way too much) won't be able to happen anymore ... by 2035, in the UK. This is not when you get ill, and need a treatment in 6 months, this is about someone closing up internal bleeding when you get hit by a car. Needless to say, the government is defunding education of new surgeons further, worsening the situation. I mean, everything is getting worse, on purpose, in the UK. From roads, public transport, and indeed the NHS. "Doing less with less" seems to be the government motto.
- M95D 1y ago> "Doing less with less" seems to be the government motto. People vote for a "slim" government and more free market mechanics. This is it.
- spwa4 1y agoI don't think any sane person would call the UK government slim. And if you check the actual finances there are almost exclusively 2 expenditures: pensions and healthcare.