molson_golden2002 Posted March 24, 2007 Author Posted March 24, 2007 YOU'RE the one that said it's okay to federally subsidize companies that provide a service. That you're too damned stupid to know that includes McDonalds but excludes drug manufactures is not my goddamned problem. I just pointed it out to you; don't shoot the messenger. Dude, I get your point. I may have errored in classifying the company but my point is still valid. If you want to declare victory becuse of service/manufacture error, go ahead. I was making a serious point and you ran wild on a silly tangent. Congradulations for splitting hairs and creating strawmen.
Bungee Jumper Posted March 24, 2007 Posted March 24, 2007 Dude, I get your point. I may have errored in classifying the company but my point is still valid. If you want to declare victory becuse of service/manufacture error, go ahead. I was making a serious point and you ran wild on a silly tangent. Congradulations for splitting hairs and creating strawmen. You were making a silly point, because you didn't know what you were talking about. And you still are, for the same reason: you have yet to evidence any understanding of the drug companies' business model. You're advocating subsidizing something you fundamentally don't understand. You may as well subsidize McDonalds for all you comprehend of the issue.
Ramius Posted March 24, 2007 Posted March 24, 2007 In biochem that's been happening for at least the last 15 years. A good friend of mine was continually harping on how any journal article methodology she tried to reproduce from Japan would inevitably need her to add a step or modify a reagent concentration to actually duplicate the results. Which makes me ask, doesn't any peer reviewer EVER try to replicate the experiments that are described in a technical article? (The answer may well be, they never do, J Coli or yourself would know much better than I about this issue. I just always found it amazing that, anecodotally at least, this practice went on (and appears to continue to this day). During the peer review here in the US, results arent duplicated. A reviewer will look for completeness of a research paper, sound methodology, and a complete set of experiments run by the original researcher. A reviewer can recommend that some more experiments be completed before publication, but the reviewer themsellves dont actually replicate anything. The problem i've had with the japanese and chinese papers is that they provide only trivial data to support their claims, and their claims arent falsifiable. I did not get the results they got, and no one in the US has, but you either get their results or you dont. theres no possible way to prove their research "wrong" per say. Also, with their data that i saw, they used a lot of cellular staining images (where they use fluorescence to tag a specific protein) to prove their results. The problem is that you can easily manipulate those digital images to make a negative signal look positive, or you can amplify a very weak signal to make it look stronger.
GG Posted March 24, 2007 Posted March 24, 2007 Dude, I get your point. I may have errored in classifying the company but my point is still valid. If you want to declare victory becuse of service/manufacture error, go ahead. I was making a serious point and you ran wild on a silly tangent. Congradulations for splitting hairs and creating strawmen. Uhm, no. Your point precisely demonstrates your ignorance of the subject. So for you to miss so widely on applying a simple analogy to solving the medical crisis, only illustrates that you shouldn't offer a solution to a problem that you don't understand. Everyone has an opinion. It would be helpful, though, if your opinion is at least informed if you try to debate people who are versed in the subject. Maybe you can tell me how I can eat cookies & ice cream all day, and not get fat.
DC Tom Posted March 24, 2007 Posted March 24, 2007 Uhm, no. Your point precisely demonstrates your ignorance of the subject. So for you to miss so widely on applying a simple analogy to solving the medical crisis, only illustrates that you shouldn't offer a solution to a problem that you don't understand. Everyone has an opinion. It would be helpful, though, if your opinion is at least informed if you try to debate people who are versed in the subject. Maybe you can tell me how I can eat cookies & ice cream all day, and not get fat. But ignorance is a straw-man argument!
molson_golden2002 Posted March 25, 2007 Author Posted March 25, 2007 You were making a silly point, because you didn't know what you were talking about. And you still are, for the same reason: you have yet to evidence any understanding of the drug companies' business model. You're advocating subsidizing something you fundamentally don't understand. You may as well subsidize McDonalds for all you comprehend of the issue. Ah! Back to the McDonald's thing! I went back and read where you bozos got the "service" sector crap from. I never once said drug companies were part of "service sector." I just said they provide a service by making these drugs that save people's lives. "Service sector" is a a classification the government developed, I wasn't using that. Hell, Ford provides a service by making cars. So again, my point still stands, if the government develops drugs they can turn them over to a private firm to manufacture. I have no problem with the company making the profit.
Bungee Jumper Posted March 25, 2007 Posted March 25, 2007 Ah! Back to the McDonald's thing! I went back and read where you bozos got the "service" sector crap from. I never once said drug companies were part of "service sector." I just said they provide a service by making these drugs that save people's lives. "Service sector" is a a classification the government developed, I wasn't using that. Hell, Ford provides a service by making cars. So again, my point still stands, if the government develops drugs they can turn them over to a private firm to manufacture. I have no problem with the company making the profit. No, error and variance are two differnt things... ...oh, sorry, wrong stupid-ass futile discussion with a potato-head. My bad.
D_House Posted March 25, 2007 Posted March 25, 2007 In ten years those breakthroughs will be coming from China. Funding academic science through government grants is a valuable tool in training homegrown US scientists. If you take away the money to do academic research, you will see entire graduate programs in science disappear. Our most distinguished academic scientists will be hired away by Universities in other countries (already happening, btw). Subsequently, no major pharma companies will stay in the US if there isn't anyone trained (ie, MS and PhDs and post-docs) to hire. They will continue to hire foreign born scientists from countries that are throwing money at science, and with every major pharmaceutical company opening research labs in China there will be no benefit to stay in the US if all the new, excellent, trained scientists are coming from somewhere else. Add the increased restriction on work visas here in the US and there is absolutely no benefit to companies keeping their operations here. You will see our most valuable resource, US citizens trained in science, dry up and dissappear, shortly followed by the pharmaceutical companies. Government funding of science is an investment in the long-term future of this country. Not all science is about "breakthroughs" and huge profits. Science is about answering questions and testing hypotheses. You can only learn how to do science by doing science, and you learn how to do science at a University. There has to be government funding of these programs. dead on. seems like some folks have a misconception about the enormous role that government funding plays in biomedical research. the vast majority of the basic science in biology is funded through the NIH, and this funding goes primarily directly towards the research - providing for the human resources (graduate students, postdocs), as well as the equipment necessary to perform the research. too many folks see these big grant numbers and think that researchers are getting rich off what they do. when a new confocal microscope costs close to $1 million, grants need to be big. the thing about government funding, the NIH, and peer review that a lot of people don't seem to understand is that it is one example of a government program that WORKS. private funding towards research in academia tends to be geared more towards the physical - donors want their names on research buildings or wings or they want to see their money used for high tech equipment. less often do you see this type of money going directly to research or to scholarships for training. in the absence of public funding, you have universities with shiny new research facilities with no people to work in them, or with people with no money to perform their research in them. furthermore, peer review works best when there are a reasonable amount of funds in respect to researchers requesting those funds. when there are 100s of good applicants, but only 10 grants, it is unreasonable to expect a fair and impartial awards system. when the system is flush with funds, more "risky" projects - the kinds that lead to major breakthroughs like RNAi - become awardable, and more "risky" researchers (i.e. young, not yet established scientists) also become funded. a couple of recent viewpoints on this topic from the people that do the research, and do it well: Andy Fire and Roger Kornberg, Nobel laureates: http://mednews.stanford.edu/fire/fire-funding.html Paul Nurse, Nobel laureate: http://newswire.rockefeller.edu/?page=engine&id=458
molson_golden2002 Posted March 25, 2007 Author Posted March 25, 2007 No, error and variance are two differnt things......oh, sorry, wrong stupid-ass futile discussion with a potato-head. My bad. Actually it was my bad, thinking for a brief moment you were somewhat intelligent. I know better now
molson_golden2002 Posted March 25, 2007 Author Posted March 25, 2007 furthermore, peer review works best when there are a reasonable amount of funds in respect to researchers requesting those funds. when there are 100s of good applicants, but only 10 grants, it is unreasonable to expect a fair and impartial awards system. when the system is flush with funds, more "risky" projects - the kinds that lead to major breakthroughs like RNAi - become awardable, and more "risky" researchers (i.e. young, not yet established scientists) also become funded. Interesting. Seems like a lot of good talent is not being properly supported. To bad for all of us.
Recommended Posts