this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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Curing diabetes isn’t as profitable as selling insulin. That’s why it doesn’t get funded.
This doesn't hold any water, logically.
If you're selling insulin and I cure/prevent diabetes with a single treatment t, you no longer have a market and I have literally every human being on the planet.
Medical science is an arms race, and cures are nukes. You make the best cure, you win. Full stop.
You would think that, except pharmaceutical research is rigged towards the few giant corporations that hold the patents. Sure, medical research is an arms race, but who is funding your research? If you find a cure but Pfizer funds you they can patent the cure and bury it or make it cost prohibitive in a variety of different ways.
The original insulin patent is open. Then why does it cost so much money to get insulin for Americans? Again, corporate patent trolling and controlling the funding for research labs. This is why corporate monopolies need to be regulated.
(Also I didn’t realize we do downvoting for disagreements on Lemmy now too)
Dude. Never, ever whine about votes. It just draws down votes, and isn't cool in the first place.
I’m glad I wrote actually that actually, as the other commenter said they downvoted me for spreading conspiracy theories and I was able to clarify why I wasn’t.
I didn't downvotes you for a disagreement, but because you're spreading false conspiracy theories in a science community.
Also I get downvotes for saying true things people don't like all the time. It isn't a big deal.
Sure, I’m spreading conspiracy theories. Not like I left chronic disease research and restarted in a completely unrelated field for this exact problem.
I didn’t work for Pfizer, but I did work for another pharmaceutical company you would recognize the name of if you live in North America. And let me tell you, while the labs are trying to do good, the executives and management are rotten to the core. Unless it’s a life threatening infectious disease, they will not prioritize the research. It’s not active suppression most of the time, it’s willful negligence and underfunding. I got into the field hopeful, and left jaded.
This is your initial claim, though.
Also, apologies if I come off as aggressive at any point, I still have a lot of residual anger over what I experienced with my former career.
No, my initial claim was:
Then you opined that whoever comes up with a cure wins, which should be true in a perfect world. In fact, most researchers would agree with you.
Unfortunately, a lot of MBA’s in these pharma companies don’t see it that way, and my reply to you was trying to outline the realities of that. I focussed more on the patent-and-bury part because this is the one method less known to the public (and less used), but underfunding research that can do a public good but isn’t profitable is a common technique by corporations in research, regardless of the discipline.
My bad, I thought this was common knowledge, but it probably isn’t for people who aren’t in PhD/post-doc research roles.