[extropy-chat] Three-quarters of N. American's support stemcellresearch

[Reason]

--> J. Andrew Rogers

> > Substantial private
> > funding just doesn't happen under those circumstances - the risk is too
> > great.
>
>
> What is this hypothetical risk?  This is not a realistic analysis.
>
> The only risk is perhaps the loss of some capital expenditure.  That's
> it.  If some day the government decided to ban research outright, all
> you've lost as a private funder is a little bit of upfront capital that
> wasn't amortized.
>
> And it isn't like losing that bit of money is a big deal to private
> funding, since they were often never expecting to see a dime of return
> on the money they spent in the first place.

The vast majority of private medical research funding is for-profit. If they
think there's a good chance of losing the money, they'll invest it something
else.

Some 1996/1997 figures: http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/nsf00301/expendit.htm

$20 billion medical R&D in the top 500 corporations versus $11-12 billion or
so for the NIH that year.

http://www.infoplease.com/year/1997.html

US GDP (1998 dollars):   $8,110.90 billion
Federal spending:   $1635.33 billion (for suitable definitions of "Federal"
and "spending")

Total philanthropic spending was on the order of $160 billion (2% of GDP) in
1997, of which about $1 billion went to medical research if the
proportionality stays the same.

All these figures are, of course, subject to a a great deal of inaccuracy.

Reason
Founder, Longevity Meme