Re: Re:Drug research

[Guest guest]

Some Facts To Consider Regarding Medical Research.

National Institute For Health is the source for most all monies spent for "basic medical research" (NIH). It's the taxpayers money. The total budget for "basic medical research" in 1999 was approximately $13.7 billion. President Bush increased it to about $27.6 billion in 2003. That's a phenomenal increase. In 1999, for every 100 applications for a grant, 33 were awarded. That statistic is still about the same in 2003.

In my opinion the "basic medical research" budget should be closer to $100 billion. Why?

1) Our total national healthcare costs are about $1.65 trillion, almost 20% of GDP.

2) Healthcare costs are rising 10 to 15% annually. One way to reduce cost is to do more basic research to develop prevention's and CURES.

3) In 1999 one corporation, Intel, spent $7 billion and employed 12,000 people in R & D. If one corporation can spend half of what we as taxpayers invest in R & D, in my opinion our spending priorities are screwed up.

4) The taxpayers shelled out $185 billion in 2003 dollars for the Apollo program. And, in 1991 there was a request for $400 billion for a space program which Bush1 turned down. I''m not against expenditures for space but when our government is tossing those kinds of figures around for investment in space, why are we only willing to spend $13 to $28 billion on "basic medical research"?

5) There are over 100 million people in the US who have a chronic illness. There are almost

200 thousand people a year who die from an iatrogenic injury. And, that may be only what's reported. There are almost 2 million people a year who suffer from an iatrogenic injury. And, many of those people are partially disabled or completely disabled.

6) Most of the NIH dollars go to the Universities for basic medical research We have to train future researchers at the Universities. But, do you think IBM or General Motors, or any large corporation for that matter, would have the Universities do their "basic research"? No way. Consider Dr. Jerome Groopman who was with a group at UCLA in a race to develop gamma interferon. They lost the race to Genentech, a leading biotech company. According to Dr. Groopman, their work at UCLA was "only a footnote" . Dr. Groopman then left UCLA for a position at Harvard to teach and to do clinical research work. In his book, "Second Opinion" he said...."competing in clinical research made the playing field more even. This was a match against other physicians in other medical centers rather that legions of Ph.D.'s in pharmaceutical companies."

7) There are over 400 neurological diseases. When you make a trip to your pharmacist, ask him how many of the pills and medicines in his inventory will cure any of these neurological diseases.

Don't you think that we as taxpayers should get more of our money invested in "basic medical research" to develop "cures and improve our quality of life? Don't you think our government should make a commitment similar to President Kennedy's commitment to go to the moon and develop a true medical research industry? Change our spending priorities?

I would like to know this..............Why is therapeutic stem cell research not an election issue? It's never mentioned. Yet, yet here are over 100 million people in the US who have a chronic illness. Would our government rather be in a "space race" or a "cure race" with China? What would benefit people of the US and the world more?