Citing specific examples from the linked article, spot the rhetorical spin.
Extra credit: discuss the irony of use of the term “marketing” as deployed in this story.
You have 30 minutes to complete your test. Good luck!
(h/t Right Bias)
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this is very hopeful news… American government scientists are at the forefront of wasting money on bullshit and with Obama’s efforts America will retain its dominance for many many years to come
Officials hope the prospect of finding new drugs will lure Congress into increasing the center’s financing well beyond $1 billion.
Wa? I thought this was suppose to spark private investment? You know, the sprucing up the neighborhood analogy.
Whether the government can succeed where private industry has failed is uncertain, officials say, but they say doing nothing is not an option.
“uncertain” isn’t the word I would use.
“I am a little frustrated to see how many of the discoveries that do look as though they have therapeutic implications are waiting for the pharmaceutical industry to follow through with them,” he said.
Yea, about that …
It might be important to note that, from a purely logical standpoint, nothing can be spent on ‘marketing’ a drug until well after money has been spent on the ‘research’ necessary to develop that drug.
At which point the marketing becomes a means of recouping the original investment in drug development. If the government wants to get into the business of subsidizing drug development – and can actually identify useful agents (which I strongly doubt) – expect the drug sellers marketing-to-research ratio to skew even higher.
This is nothing more than a means to centralize control over another industry. That it is being done in a hurry is the blatantly obvious tell.
So, when you tell drug companies that you are going to control what they charge for new drugs, to the point where they cannot afford to develop new drugs, they stop doing it. That is so amazing.
Why oh why would Big Pharma be reluctant to bring forth new medicines in Dear Leader’s America? I can’t imagine.
“None of this is intended to be competitive with the private sector,” Collins said. “The hope would be that any project that reaches the point of commercial appeal would be moved out of the academic support line and into the private sector.”
Collins continued, “Oh, sure, we’re gonna wind up subsidizing a boatload of dead-end research into politically popular, high-profile diseases, but every once in a while we’ll stumble upon a winner, which we will hand over to whomever is currently in favor with us and the bosses in Washington.”
Extra credit: the reader is supposed to infer that “marketing” involves strictly the glossy adverts and commercials for boner pills that bombard us each day, and pay no attention to the fact that a lot of pharmaceutical “marketing” involves giving away medicines.
I guess I should have said it’s “unexpected.” These days, of course, “unexpected” actually means “pretty frelling obvious to anyone who can think things through.”
I could have sworn that the Human Genome Project headed by this guy Collins was flailing around like a retard in a maze until Craig Venter quit and started a bioinformatics company that did it a thousand times faster. These people are incapable of learning anything.
I watched the Exam on Netflix last night. A bit predictable, but over all it was worth watching.
This one. Not the Jean Claude VanDamme movie.
#5 – Not to take anything away from your valid point about the anti-commerce environment created by the Obama adminsitration.
But the main reason drug development has slowed is that all the low hanging fruit (and the multiple me-too drugs that come along for the ride) has been picked. Most of what remains is exceedingly hard to treat any better than done today.
We already have a number of drugs used in the treatment of Parkinsonism, used properly they are quite effective at controlling symptoms and restoring functionality for an extended period of time. But none of them do anything to alter the progressive nature of what is ultimately a degenerative disease of the brain. And none of those ‘promising discoveries’ noted in the article have given us even a glimmer of hope for doing so. Why would a company spend billions to create something that doesn’t offer any real advantage over what is already out there (and mostly available in very inexpensive generic form)?
‘Marketing’ used in that context (following the negative finger-pointing phrase ‘slowing output) is a dig at a traditional tool of capitalism, which obviously needs the strong hand of Government to rein it in and ‘improve’ this unacceptable outcome (the fault, of course, of evil open markets).
That, and as many stem cells as we can manufacture.
Gee. You have to wonder if there’s a “mandate” for “innovation”, huh? Maybe we can pass a law REQUIRING innovation!
You can pass a law about anything, and when you do, stuff just happens!
And why does it cost billions to bring a drug to market? It isn’t because scientists and laboratories are so expensive. There’s a 3 letter answer to that question and it starts with FDA.
“And the NIH is not likely to be very good at drug discovery, so why are they doing this?” Lively asked.
Because, my dear Lively, Barry’s friends and cohorts make no money if this doesn’t happen
AJB comes to the goverments defense in ……..wait for it……
VIOLENT RIGHT-WING RHETORIC!
I mean, isn’t that obviously an invitation for someone to go out and impale an entire drug development center?
For every “problem” there is always a way to frame a new government agency as the only solution. This system exhibits positive feedback as the new “solution” will in turn create more problems which will require more government agencies to be created as solutions.
The only creativity required is to ensure that a private sector entity can be scapegoated for each problem. The Obama administration’s creative solution is to buy off certain private sector entities to pose as scapegoats. Ones who will be rewarded later with contracts coming from the government “solution” agency who will praise them as having been now been rehabilitated, reeducated to the “good” way.
Government can be seen as a mass of U-235 with problems as slow neutrons. Any mass will produce problems but once the mass reaches a certain size a chain reaction occurs and problem production goes hyperbolic. The private sector is an neutron absorber, control rods which damp down problem production. The recession pulled the control rods part way out and the administration has worked to pull them out entirely or as above change them from adsorbing materials to reflecting ones.
Government as house flipper? Could be a new cable show.
And King Barry bade the public,” I want a Boat with Three propellers.” and ” a machine that will run continuously on sunshine and poop.”
So let it be written, so let it be done.
This is gobsmackingly stupid. Good Allah, they are idiots. No way will they get Congressional approval for this, so they will just go all unitary Executive
“Federal agency to spearhead new drug-development center”
I have to admit, the first thing that popped into my head was,”But somebody already makes M&Ms.”