One of the country’s leading Alzheimer’s projects is in jeopardy
A pause to NIH funding has researchers scrambling for contingency plans at the University of Washington’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. The center’s brain bank is preserving more than 4,000 brains for research.
/snip
Thousands of grants, including many at public universities and on topics as politically benign as Alzheimer’s, have been caught in what critics say is an unprecedented slowdown of the American research system that is threatening to upend universities and halt progress toward medical innovations, treatments and cures.Even the temporary slowdown threatens to hamper or scuttle programs that have been decades in the making — and some of which are also actively treating patients.
As noted before, TPTB figure everything they want can be developed in other countries, at someone else’s expense. Defund the US programs, so the money can be used for another “JC” tax cut.
Steve
Is Alzheimer’s research now political?
Anything under the suspicion of being informed by science and arithmetic is political.
intercst
It is interesting that the US and US pharma are responsible for developing the vast majority of drugs, but other countries demand to pay very low prices for these drugs. Therefore, US premium payers are funding high priced drugs so that companies can spend billions on R&D for the next high-priced drug.
I would be for a law that says either,
- You cannot charge more for a drug in the US than you charge for it in Canada or the EU. or
- If you are a pharma headquartered outside of the US, then you can only charge the price your HQ country or region (EU) pays.
So why should our tax payers fund “all” the research and then pay higher prices for the results?
Anyone who is for price controls, is also saying “we don’t need so many drugs”, because price controls reduce profits, which reduce R&D. So, if anyone on this thread has been for socialized medicine or severe price controls, then you can’t really complain about this cut in funding.
That is a “we USians are victims” talking point. US drug companies would not sign contracts with other countries, if they did not want to sell at those prices. They push the “victim” narrative to deflect questions about their pricing in the US.
Steve
will become a no-brainer?
Alzheimer’s might be “politically benign” but the target is not the disease but the witch doctors’ concoctions makers. I’ve been following the progress of statins, one of the recommended drugs I decided not to take. There is a fantastic correlation between the growth of statin prescriptions and the lowering of cholesterol levels deemed safe. The drug industry the so called “legal” drug industry needs to be reined in. It’s a major contributor to the fiscal deficit along with other parts of the health care industry.
The best and healthiest drugs are good foods in markets world wide, much less expensive than supplements and drugs pushed by industry. Yes, drug pushers! Literally! Legally!
The Captain
You can get statins as a free generic in most cases. I am not sure there is enough money behind free to fuel that conspiracy.
Dear Captain Hook,
That is not the correct correlation.
Switch hands.
Actually…and although the poster may not have intended to highlight this…the continued increase in the use of statins has made it clear that the lowering of “total cholesterol”, and especially LDL-C along with triglycerides is not only safe but beneficial. Especially in that population who’ve already been long term consumers of good food in markets worldwide and overall good custodians of their bodies.
It’s a good idea for the statin denialists to remember (or be aware of, if they didn’t know in the first place) that, when looking at the history of pharmacology, medications such as statins … and many others such as, say insulin, the oral hypoglycemics etc … were never developed for the population that’s become the biggest consumer base over the past 20-30 years. Namely the over eaters, over sitters etc who’ve developed “diabesity” and the downstream consequences. Quite the reverse. Rather for the folk who, because of a being dealt a poor genetic hand or other unintended event, have developed diseases that no amount of Righteous Lifestyle Choices will treat effectively.
In fact, those poor lifestyle choices that oftentimes lead to a recommendation of statin use have become so prevalent in this day and age that they’ve taken over the narrative in these diseases. To the extent that appropriate diagnosis can be obscured and delayed for those who are identified as evident Good Custodians … even by those who ought to know better.