Predictable. Lupus, or SLE, is a terrible disease that killed two people in my life: my father and my piano teacher, who was a lifelong friend.
So, on Facebook (which is lame in so many ways, but is really my only means of constant, reliable contact with my family and friends when I am on the other side of the world) I am a 'member' of a group dedicated to finding a cure for SLE. Yesterday, on my FB homepage, I saw a message asking members of the SLE group to petition Congress for more research funding. They provided links on how to contact your senators and representatives. I was the first to post, and I said, "I disagree with governments funding research. Sorry, I won't be calling."
Holy cats, did the insults fly! I was told that I if someone I love is ever afflicted with lupus, I would have a different opinion. I was called selfish, droll, misinformed, uneducated and pretentious.
I then stated that two people very close to me died from lupus, and that the reason I want the government out of the funding of research, is because I want a cure to be found, not because I don't want a cure to be found.
Well, then I was called self-centered, selfish, negative, heartless, uneducated (again) and delusional. It was also implied that I was lying about my father and friend dying of lupus.
One of the things I mentioned was that a cure was found for polio without a single nickle of government money. In fact, I mentioned it twice, and no one took notice. If these people are 'average' Americans, then I must conclude that the average American cannot understand how medical research can possibly be done absent government funding.
I have two questions:
1) Is it true that the research that led to the polio vaccine was totally unfunded by government? I heard that somewhere, and I haven't seen anything that refutes it.
2a) Should I have handled this differently? Other than not engaging these people at all, is there something I could have said that would have made at least some of them see my point of view?
2b) Is there an article on the economics of medical funding from a free market perspective? I found one, but it was in a scholarly journal, and it was way over my head.
One possible error I made was when one lady, who claimed to have a master's degree in psychology, declared me to be "delusional." My response would have been more suitable in the context of a chat room:
Nicole, if you have a master's degree in psychology, and you declared me to be delusional based on one post on the internet, it means that either:1) you are lying and don't actually have a degree in psychology or...2) psychology is an idiotic pseudo-science or...3) you are a shit psychologist
That thread petered out. Here is a link to another on the same FB page, asking if we (the members of the group) contacted our congressmen. On this one I have also made a comment that, I am sure, will be met with the same attacks as the previous one.
Read my Nolan Chart column "Me & My Big Mouth"
McDuffie:This is something that knight_of_baawa was very good at. When I first encountered BAAWA in yahoo chat c. Jan 2000, I was a terrible state-worshiper. I held democracy up as the highest possible human ideal, and my hero was Ralph Nader. After literally years of very friendly debate, BAAWA finally planted enough seeds that I was inspired to start considering the opinions of the other side.
Where is he anyway? Mods / Admin?
LoyalistRevolt:To be honest there would be no real growth in the medical field out government and you can only get so far just thinking. People don't realize that knowledge is expensive and time consuming and no other entity has the kind of money and time that government has.
Prove your assertions. I cannot stress this strongly enough. Prove. Your. Assertions.
this thread will lock
McDuffie: LoyalistRevolt: Ever heard of march of dimes? It was an an agency created when Roosevelt was in office to find a polio vaccination for children. Funded Jonas Salk who was the creator of the vaccinations. The March of Dimes is not an agency. It is a charity. Politicians, including FDR, encouraged their constituents to donate to the March of Dimes. This does not, in any sense, amount to government funding.
LoyalistRevolt: Ever heard of march of dimes? It was an an agency created when Roosevelt was in office to find a polio vaccination for children. Funded Jonas Salk who was the creator of the vaccinations.
Ever heard of march of dimes? It was an an agency created when Roosevelt was in office to find a polio vaccination for children. Funded Jonas Salk who was the creator of the vaccinations.
The March of Dimes is not an agency. It is a charity. Politicians, including FDR, encouraged their constituents to donate to the March of Dimes. This does not, in any sense, amount to government funding.
but who helps support march of dimes?
http://www.marchofdimes.com/855_8891.asp
bloomj31: this thread will lock
Dang.
LoyalistRevolt: McDuffie: LoyalistRevolt: Ever heard of march of dimes? It was an an agency created when Roosevelt was in office to find a polio vaccination for children. Funded Jonas Salk who was the creator of the vaccinations. The March of Dimes is not an agency. It is a charity. Politicians, including FDR, encouraged their constituents to donate to the March of Dimes. This does not, in any sense, amount to government funding. but who helps support march of dimes? http://www.marchofdimes.com/855_8891.asp
That the March of Dimes is funded by government today is irrelevant to the point being discussed here.
McDuffie: 1) Is it true that the research that led to the polio vaccine was totally unfunded by government? I heard that somewhere, and I haven't seen anything that refutes it. 2a) Should I have handled this differently? Other than not engaging these people at all, is there something I could have said that would have made at least some of them see my point of view? 2b) Is there an article on the economics of medical funding from a free market perspective? I found one, but it was in a scholarly journal, and it was way over my head.
First question first. I know that the polio vaccine that killed polio was developed by Jonas Salk, whose wife had perished from polio. He thus had a great personal incentive to put an end to polio, and received a great deal of funding the the March of Dimes, which appears to have relied on voluntary contributions.
Now, according to Kevin Trudeau, the author of several books on alternative health care, the pharmaceutical industry has a vested interest in NOT curing disease but instead developing and marketing medicines to treat symptoms for perpetuity. The pharmaceutical industry, then, suppresses "natural cures" legally through medical licencing, FDA drug approval requirements, laws regarding intellectual property, mandatory vaccinations in schools, etc. etc. etc. Even back in 2003, he was saying that the anthrax letters were sent by American bioscientists to try to boost profits. Of course, Trudeau is just a crazy conspiracy theorist; we all know that the government would never ever, ever do anything to hurt us.
Another crazy conspiracy theorist argues that the government has a long, shameful history of human experimentation and offensive biowarfare. But, since that is also just a bizzare fringe conspiracy theory, we shouldn't worry at all about excessive government funding of medical research.
All these crazy conspiracy theories can really make one wonder why we can build supercomputers, clone sheep, split the atom, and put men on the moon, but we have so far failed to cure cancer or AIDS. Perhaps it has something to do with the immense corruption in scientific industries. You notice that genetic engineering and biotech is more geared towards suing farmers for patent infringement than it is about increasing crop yields. Likewise, nu clear power plants have been built primarily for producing plutonium for weapons, and if they can make money selling electricity in the process, so much the better.
Which brings me to question two, or why the hell you feel the need to debate people on facebook, of all places. Personally, I have a facebook account, but I have NEVER once used it to promote some variety of market liberalism or engage in a tirade like the one I just did. My facebook account, after all, has my real name and photograph, and friends who know me personally. Mises.org is a much safer place to have this kind of discussion, away from the prying eyes of girlfriends or potential employers.
"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable."
I just read every article on a google news archive search of ["march of dimes" polio congress] from 1938-1951 (1951 being the year before the polio vaccine was discovered), and I found zero articles that showed even one penny of government funding for polio research. If government provided funding for the March of Dimes prior to 1952, then there was a conspicuous lack of news coverage of the fact.
Nice try, though.
ama gi:Which brings me to question two, or why the hell you feel the need to debate people on facebook, of all places. Personally, I have a facebook account, but I have NEVER once used it to promote some variety of market liberalism or engage in a tirade like the one I just did. My facebook account, after all, has my real name and photograph, and friends who know me personally. Mises.org is a much safer place to have this kind of discussion, away from the prying eyes of girlfriends or potential employers.
????
I have just a phrase for you: viral cancer theory. You may not remember it but back in the '70s it was "the next step forward" in medical research. Government and Big Pharma poured untold billions into it: the idea was that developing a number of antiviral drugs most types of cancer could be cured quite easily. There were even talks of "cancer vaccines" for some particular tumors. Forty years later all that's left is a dubious and potentially harmful vaccine against Human Papilloma Virus (HPV): it's supposed to prevent radically reduce risk of cervical cancer in women if administered at an early age but given the fact medical trials have been run on adult subjects this claim has been often questioned. If all the previous useless research work on antivirals is taken into account this is by far the most expensive drug/vaccine in human history.
Truth to be told Big Pharma and research labs always had doubts about the viral theory but they simply played along since governments all over the world could be milked for research funds. If you submitted your request for funding "studies into the link between X virus and Y tumor" you were almost sure to be granted money without too much questioning and if your research turned out a drug which was useless against cancer but had other interesting "side effects"... it was free money after all! So we lost thirty years in the cancer war and it took lots of effort by committed and brilliant researchers to show cancers are a bit more complicated than originally thought.
This wouldn't have happened if Big Pharma had been forced to answer to a free market: no hospital would have purchased a useless drug and no GP would have inoculated a patient with an untested and potentially harmful vaccine. After seeing research was leading nowhere they would have turned to other areas of cancer research which held more promise.
That's the same with every single health service: a free market would quickly weed out useless drugs/therapies. Research institutes and pharmaceutical companies, devoid of the big and clueless government spenders, would be forced to develop something that really works.
LoyalistRevolt:and this does happen often my father is a biologist and is constantly asked by companies to fudge his data so that a product can look better or that a chemical does not look as harmful.
Ever heard of climate gate?
LoyalistRevolt:[Snipped lines about it not being a monetary matter]
It is a monetary matter whether you like it or not. Money does not grow on trees, and funding for scientific research has to come from somewhere. It can either come from private investment and charitable donation, in which case it remains accountable to the donaters/shareholders/customers etc. or it can be doled out by bureaucratic officials entrusted with government money, in which case it will go to whoever these bureaucratic officials believe it should go. The former will result in people being far more careful and competent in their research, given the fact that if they foul up, they run the risk of losing funding. There is a much lower risk of losing funding under government studies, especially if such studies are politically useful to the ruling regime (such as the IPCC, Soviet "science" where scientists were given conclusions and tasked into proving the conclusions and "scientific" studies showing politically conservative people are less intelligent than politically left wing people).
In essence, customers, shareholders and donaters are spending their own money. Bureaucrats are simply alloting out funds arbitrarily distributed to them by other bureaucrats.
To be honest there would be no real growth in the medical field out government and you can only get so far just thinking. People don't realize that knowledge is expensive and time consuming and no other entity has the kind of money and time that government has.
To be honest, I don't really care what your opinion is on the matter because it's a hollow assertion.
Again in this realm of research you can't use and economic analogy.
Because?
Nothing many come of research or the next cure for cancer could be found its really up in the air. You should be more worried about free-market companies funding scientists then filling the reports with bogus information in order to sell their product but that another thing entirely, and this does happen often my father is a biologist and is constantly asked by companies to fudge his data so that a product can look better or that a chemical does not look as harmful.
That's nice, but this is anecdotal 'evidence', does not really account for the fact that fudging data is fraud (which should be prosecuted, wonder why it isn't eh?) nor does it account for the fact scientists too are driven by economic motives, given that their jobs largely are contingent on the research they perform, and by this I mean academics. No, I should still be worried about the government as the biggest fraud of them all and no amount of whining you do will change the fact that funding by the government is as if not more susceptible to corruption as research by individuals.
Tell that to robin hood.
Why?
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
McDuffie -
Rothbard's shoe example is a good illustration of today's medical monopoly. The medical monopoly is hell-bent on manufacturing the means - drugs - to treat diseases. Unfortunately, the misguided results only address the symptoms, not root causes.
In the case of diseases like lupus, root causes could be treatable without doctors or drugs. The body is programmed to heal. Treat the root causes and the body will heal itself.
Point being - drugs do not cure root causes. They only mask physical imbalances in a shroud of empirical opinion to benefit a priviledged monopoly.
As individuals we have lost sight of the difference between those who doctor and those who heal.
The distinction is between one who has accumulated the necessary tools to rescue an injured individual from threat of death or permanent disability and one who is able to empower individuals with the ability to self-heal.
Lupus is an auto-immune disorder. Auto-immune disorders are most often related to allegies like type II food allergies or allegies to persons or objects. A person can even become allergic to their own body or substances it produces. There are effective treatments available to permanently ELIMINATE those allergies by changing diet, balancing body energy, and/or 're-programming' the brain to eliminate the root cause of the allergies.
I refer specifically to those practioners, many of whom are both holistic and AMA PHD"S, who utilize and practice non-conventional health care and preventive medicine. Preventive medicine can cure existing allergies and even some auto-immune disorders. There is also a treatment commonly referred to as "NAET" which reprograms the body to eliminate the cause of auto-immune disorders. "NAET" is an acronym for Namibudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques.
It could be that these alternative treatments would benefit, perhaps even cure the lupus patients you referred to. Have they tried alternative medicine or treatments? If not, they by appealing to a medical monopoly for drugs, perhaps they are simply barking up the wrong tree.
Ultimately, an individual is responsible for seeking, acquiring, and utilizing their own tools to manage their own health. There is no harm or shame in asking for help in the search for these tools or knowledge. The harm occurs when others are forced to pay for your own condition or actions.
"Oh, I wish I could pray the way this dog looks at the meat" - Martin Luther