Why Companies and Countries Are
Battling for Ascendancy in 5G
By DON CLARK and CECILIA KANG
Taking an early lead in ultrafast
next-generation wireless technology can give players a strategic advantage.
NYT Headline
March 07, 2018
If those cuts had gone through,
they would have exposed one of the biggest lies told about Big Pharma: that the
current system of patents and price-gouging is just an unfortunate necessity to
cover the cost of all their brave and noble R&D work.
...
Just how important is our publicly
funded research to Big Pharma and Biotech? According to a new study by a small,
partly industry-funded think tank called the Center for Integration of Science
and Industry (CISI), it is existentially important. No NIH funds, no new drugs,
no patents, no profits, no industry.
...
The authors found that each of the
210 medicines approved for market came out of research supported by the NIH. Of
the $100 billion it spent nationally during this period, more than half of
it—$64 billion—ended up helping the development of 84 first-in-class drugs.
...
...publicly funded labs conduct
years of basic research to get to a breakthrough, which is then snatched up,
tweaked, and patented (privatized) by companies who turn around and reap
billions with 1,000-times-cost mark-ups on drugs developed with taxpayer money.
...
Those companies then spend the
profits on executive bonuses and share buybacks, and lavish mass marketing
campaigns to increase sales of amphetamines, benzos, opioids, and dick pills.
...
Why are we allowing drug companies
to gain proprietary control over taxpayer-funded research, then turn around and
price-gouge those same taxpayers to literal death?...
"... taxpayers fund the
riskier part of drug development, then once the medicines show promise, they
are often privatized under patent monopolies that lock in exorbitant prices for
20 years or longer,”...
By Alexander
Zaitchik / Social Security Works
March 2, 2018, 10:46 AM GMT
[emphasis JS]
One of the many studies I would
have funded had I hit one of the really big lotteries is on how much ostensibly
private profit is gained from publicly funded research. Most of the iphone is
derived from public research. The Weather Bureau costs about a billion a year
to run, for a long time far beyond the ability of a single person to
underwrite, and they gave away their output for free. Private profit, annually,
from the Weather Bureau's research and forecasting? 100 billion dollars.
Where's my equity share of that?
Where's yours?
Jack Strawb
[emphasis JS]
