"If the problem in the drug industry is simply that not enough is being spent on R&D, that is easily correctable. Unfortunately for all of us, that's not the problem."
The problem with the drug industry is basically that many of their most important epistemological assumptions are largely incorrect. The reason the entire industry is about to go under isn't because all the easy cures have been taken, it's because they started to buy into their own bullshit. Their astronomical R&D costs and terrible success rates are largely their own fault, so I don't really buy this high cost of R&D argument as a reason for not making the drugs more widely available. I won't bother rehashing all of the epistemological problems with allopathic medicine here, but I was link to this video which talks about why the ubiquitous mouse model is so problematic:
The problem with the drug industry is basically that many of their most important epistemological assumptions are largely incorrect. The reason the entire industry is about to go under isn't because all the easy cures have been taken, it's because they started to buy into their own bullshit. Their astronomical R&D costs and terrible success rates are largely their own fault, so I don't really buy this high cost of R&D argument as a reason for not making the drugs more widely available. I won't bother rehashing all of the epistemological problems with allopathic medicine here, but I was link to this video which talks about why the ubiquitous mouse model is so problematic:
http://vimeo.com/33803995
Plus, many of the new drugs are just evergreens, so much of that 'R&D' is really just a clever way to screw the patients.