And I suggest that coming from someone who only recently made a cack-handed attempt at harassment on this forum, time may be well invested in considering how much he actually wants to remain on these boards.

Harassment? I invite you to provide any evidence of harassment. Either publically on here, or in a PM if you prefer.

LOL. Yes, it was indeed noted. I thought you must be off on holiday somewhere, or had maybe sat on the laptop.....

Eli Lilly discovered the ingrediant for and developed Prozac, one of the most used drugs in the world, Black whilst at ICI discovered the ingrediant for and developed Beta-Blockers again one of the most consumed drugs in the world. Who funded the Wellcome foundation? the same people that fund a huge chunk of research in unversities the good old capitalist.

My father used to work for ER Squibb when they were a decent company before they were gobbled up by Bristol Myers. They developed a number of cutting edge drugs - they funded and worked alongside academia to develop these products - it was a process of cross pollination as I would suggest is the case with most drug development. To say all the major breakthroughs come via the state is simply untrue.

Depends what you call dodaas - I would say printed matter is a bit more than a doodah - is transport a doodah?

There is a reason why The Wellcome foundation does the research it does, and makes the discoveries it does, and Glaxosmithkline make cold remedies and Horlicks, and has to pay out billions of pounds in fines for fraud, kickbacks, and hides research. Teva pharmacuticals are one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world, their entire company pretty much just makes cheap pills other people have discovered.

When Jonas Salk found remedies that didnt work, he told the world. When Eli Lilly found remedies that didnt work, they just pretended they did and sold them anyway. After all, their sugar pills were flavoured



I don’t think really you can look at ‘transport’ as a product of private enterprise, like there wasn’t huge amounts of state research in to flight, like the biggest ship and boat builders weren’t Navys. Like universities throughout the world don’t do huge amounts of research in to aerodynamics. like it didnt need government backing with huge levels of road building to cover for the motorcars failings. like it isnt government standards that have driven improvement.

Almost all, the vast, vast, vast majority of research which leads to major discoveries which change the way we see, use and look at the world comes from the state and academia. This will always be the case. Academia looks for the answer. Capitalism looks for the money.

An abusive post that was designed specifically to insult/offend.

A tactic used quite widely in an attempt to silence people – hence harassment.

You know entirely well which post I mean (I have retained a screen grab for reference). So I suggest again that you consider for yourself how much you want to retain posting rights to this site.

Additionally, it could be noted that Big Pharma currently stands accused of not revealing trial results – not least because it doesn't want any less-than-brilliant results to damage profits. Ben Goldacre's [iBad Pharma[/i is just one meticulously-researched and detailed examination of this.

Specifically, one could also consider the question of when and how cholesterol became a disease, and who has benefitted from this. And the relationships between big businesses with a vested interested in promoting/maintaining certain views on health even when they're challenged directly by research. I'm thinking specifically of the British Heart Foundation here, and Unilever, which owns the Flora brand, which has a link with the BHF.

He seems to enjoy being personal with regards peoples looks and even hints of weightism today...

I challenge him to put a picture up of himself?
I'll grant him an apology if he's half as handsome as me?

I suggest that nobody gets caught up in it.

I think you' ll find that it was Codpiece who was the guilty party who posted in another thread...[i"Allslop is correct in one respect though, there are millions who subsist on little electricity, there are also millions who subsist on a low-calorie food intake too, maybe if she followed their lead she could shift some of that blubber she's carrying".[/i

And in all honesty, who could be as handsome as you? Is not GOD both compassionate and generous? What he takes away with one hand....he recompenses with the other......wit and intelligence for an outstanding physique and George Clooney looks.

Oh, and I've absolutely no problem with sticking a photo of myself on here for folk to stick pins in if they so desire. All it needs is for someone to say it doesn't break an AUP regulations.....

I know the one you mean Amanda, and can I honestly say it was put up simply as a piece of childish humour, hopefully to raise a smile as much as to annoy you. I apologise if it did cross a line, as there was no intention to cause any real offence, certainly no more than what is usual on Sin Bin.

It didn't specifically annoy me – heat, kitchens etc – but it did cross a line for the reason I outlined earlier: ie, that's it's a familiar tactic on social media etc.

Apology accepted.


Let's [uall[/u try to use the new year as a chance to keep a tad calmer than on occasions.

Big Pharma is a massive showing of the failings of capitalism. It shows that money trumps progress and the benefits of R&D done through the state and academia. Capitalism makes things cheaper, there is clearly and obviously a place for it. It brings this to the masses and market efficiencies do work in some areas. However market efficiencies also fail in a lot of areas. It drives what is profitable not what is the best option, it drives what makes the most money, not what helps the most people. There is a need for the Eli Lilly company to mass produce cheaply and efficiently vaccines. But the fact is that it took government money and academic research, and the genius of an academic in Jonas Salk to create the vaccine.

In other areas too, for example Monsanto make a fortune and are hugely controversial, It needed the Mexican State, Charity, and Norman Borlaug to reject Du Ponts money to save billions of lives. Redirecting the money from the Monsanto’s and Eli Lillys to the Jonas Salk and Norman Borlaugs to research for the greater sum of human knowledge will not only push forward human progress and make all our lives better, give us better access to the unfettered truth rather than the lies and lies of omission companies often rely on to protect their market position (is there any Big Pharma company which hasn’t introduced a fairly damaging drug, then hidden behind biased research before being found out?) but also give the capitalists more doodahs and whatsits to make cheaply and sell on. A virtuous cycle if any ever existed.

Smokey - that's a tad OTT about big pharma.

The argument for big pharma has always been about their ability to fund speculative development. This is hugely expensive, especially when you consider we're not just talking about a few drugs, or just coming up with an idea but going through complex and expensive development and testing through to human trials and large-scale production for many drugs at the same time.

The current model is based on the funding of the above being in turn protected by the ability to earn abnormal profits from developed products for a period via patent protection.

I'm not arguing that the current model isn't flawed - it is. Genuine groundbreaking research nearly always comes from outside of big corporates, partly because they focus a lot of effort on developing new versions of existing drugs, or new drugs to treat the same disease. Corporates will also focus on diseases where the potential payoffs from a cure promise to be significant - i.e. they'll focus far more time on common ailments than uncommon ones.

But like many things, you can't "fix" the system that exists by tampering with just part of it - e.g. remove patent protection entirely and there's zero incentive for anyone to commercially develop any new drug. The problem then becomes who funds the research and how (and a lot of academics in R&D are directly or indirectly supported in part by big pharma).

My own experience of big Pharma centres around Astrazeneca. They have a huge R&D centre near Macclesfield - a site so big and developed it's almost a town in itself. Approx 2,000 R&D staff iirc - a huge expense to the company. Most of it is relocating to Cambridge in a few years, but that's another story.

They have several dozen key staff travelling internationally mainly to other AZ locations every week, and up until around 2010 they all travelled Business Class, no questions asked. They were buying so many seats most of the airlines they used offered corporate preferred deals to capture the maximum number of travellers possible and retain the business. This had been the status quo for many, many years, the reasoning being they wanted their staff fresh and ready to work when they arrived - many, many companies cite this reason for buying premium seats, and fair enough.

Then, around 2010, a (cancer?) drug they had spend many hundreds of millions and many years developing was denied certification in the States. All that money down the drain. Tens of thousands of salaried R&D hours wasted, leading directly and indirectly to several thousand AZ jobs being lost globally over the past few years.

Another consequence was that their international travel dipped drastically. Many staff stopped travelling, others travelled Economy Class. This may seem trivial but I know for a fact when the move to Cambridge happens and AZ stop flying out of Manchester, the revenue loss means at least one airline will almost certainly cut a route, which can mean the loss of jobs across a number of companies such as ground handlers, caterers, security, airline staff, etc.

Pharma drug pipelines are often years long and can cost hundreds of millions in R&D, testing, trials, etc, a huge investment and a huge risk. Despite the myths, they're not simply milking state and academia, they're making enormous investment and bearing enormous cost themselves. They do so because their competitors are racing them to get these drugs developed and to market where the profits need to cover that investment and then some.

You seem to think that all research of any note is conducted b academia - on that point we must agree to differ. The capitalists fund and engage in huge research projects. On transport you seem to discount all the work undertaken by the major car manufacturers, Rolls Royce - who have the most advanced jet engines around, I don't see many governments in the west building or designing ships, same goes for planes - I didn't realise Boeing or Northrop were government owned? .

There is a huge difference in finding something - discovering a way of turning that into a product that can benefit society as a whole is a different matter. Without the capitalist that simple would not happen.

On the other hand at least some of that research and design and construction is done purely with profit in mind - how can we build more, more quickly, at lower cost ?

The Rolls Royce issue is a case in point, we would not have the jet engines that we have now were it not for Government decrees that they should be quieter (not least decrees from the USA) and less poluting, accompanied by a different requirement to make them run more efficiently (cheaper).

Compare any new aircraft and the noise it makes upon take-off ( I live 1 mile away from an airport

) with any old video of a Boeing 707 taking off, when you sat inside one of those you knew that something dramatic and noisy was happening outside because it was dramatic and noisy INSIDE - also check out the exhaust output from one of those and you'll see how poluting they were - then bare in mind that the first solution to make those aircraft bigger was simply to add more of the same engines to them.

Many of which are conducted by the countries finest universities.

id agree with most of that. I wouldn’t simply remove patent protection but there needs to be a fundamental restructure of the relationship between the state, the public, academia and Big Pharma for numerous reasons, some which you mention, other such as the lies, lies of omission, and general bending of the truth which has become commonplace in medicine because there can be quite a big discrepancy between what is good for the patient and what is good for the drug company. Not to mention the uncomfortable relationship we should all see between doctors and Big Pharma and marketing and Big Pharma. Im also not keen on the duplication of research being done by competing big pharma companies. That seems 'inefficient' when it could be done more collaboratively in an academic setting.

As I said earlier, there is a place for drug companies, but for me the relationship should always be the Jonas Salk creating the thing, where it can be done through academia, where it can be peer reviewed, where all information is made public, where the aim is the truth and the answer, not the money, and the Eli Lilly manufacturing the thing.

The other problem with big pharma is they are less inclined to find cures for illnesses or conditions, preferring instead to find treatments. There's no real money in cures

If bigpharma1 invents a treatment that doesn't cure, and bigpharma2 invents a treatment that provides a permanent cure, who gets the business?

Whoever pays the biggest kickback to the state/doctor?

You can never trust the state. The one business with the most scope to create and abuse a monopoly.

Never trust big business. It exists solely and purely and unequivocally to take your money.

I have to ask who would you trust more to prescribe the best drug for you, to you. Your NHS GP, or your friendly local Glaxosmithkline sales rep?

Unlike the state, big business (why do you differentiate from small business here?) can't force you to hand over your money.

AFAIK, Glaxosmithkline produce drugs, rather than prescribe them.