Words about science and hiking
Innovations created in developed economies do not deprive less-developed economies of anything. More to the point, less-developed economies eventually get access to these innovations, and get them at prices that are cheaper than the prevailing prices in developed economies. Drugs are a good example of this dynamic. Many of us consider new drug prices to Read More …
I read Bad Blood, John Carreyou’s account of the Theranos fiasco over Christmas and must say it changed my conception of what went down there. I’d written a fair amount about Theranos over at Quora (see here), and was clearly much too sanguine as to what was going on. I thought they were just at Read More …
On October 10th, President Trump issued a ringing denunciation (which he totally wrote himself) of socialism in general and socialized health care in particular: “Virtually everywhere it has been tried, socialism has brought suffering, misery and decay.” Socialism’s latest threat? To destroy socialized medicine for seniors in the US. If given the chance, socialists will “…give Read More …
Published on Forbes and Apple News There’s little question that we have been suckered into taking far more medicine than we actually require. But let’s face it – we want to be suckered. We ask for it, we demand it, and we get it. Pharma companies are enablers, but they are not all-powerful overlords forcing us to Read More …
It is a generally accepted precept that corporations are obligated to maximize shareholder returns. Resources thus should be directed only to efforts that have the highest expected return. Diseases of poverty, like TB and malaria, by definition afflict those least able to pay, and thus are least likely to generate satisfactory returns on investment for pharmas. Read More …
One of the things I like about writing for Quora is that it is mostly a troll-free zone. The most annoying questions directed to me are usually from students hoping I’ll answer their midterm questions for them (e.g., “What nucleotide is found in DNA but not RNA?” or “What is the Lewis dot structure of Read More …
The federal RTT legislation, which you can read here, makes no reference to payments of any kind, except to state that a referring physician can not be compensated directly by the drug manufacturer. Indirect is just fine. I wonder if drug companies could possibly figure out ways to pay doctors indirectly? [1] Payments are not forbidden, Read More …
In what has to be one of the least-surprising results ever, researchers at the Sanger Institute in the UK find that CRISPR modification of dividing cells causes high rates of DNA rearrangements. This study differed from others in that it 1) used cells that divide but are normal – eg., stem cells rather than tumor Read More …
I recently wrote that the Right-to-Try legislation would inevitably become Right-to-Rob. Although Merck and other pharma incumbents (weakly) opposed the law, it wouldn’t be long until small cash-strapped companies began exploiting it to improve their finances. That day has arrived. Bloomberg reports that BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics will begin selling its investigational ALS treatment to patients. Read More …
Tirumalai Kamala has an excellent answer at Quora. I’ll add this: Nobody should be forced to give tissue samples, of course. But note that patients who have tissue removed as part of their care are receiving a benefit – their health is improved as a result. Or at least they have a reasonable expectation of benefit. Thus, Read More …