[ExI] Problem with Pattents

[Tom Tobin]

On 2/25/08, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 3:44 PM, Tom Tobin <korpios at korpios.com> wrote:
>
>  >  I think we're looking at the situation the wrong way.  Instead of "How
>  >  can pharma companies recoup their R&D costs?", I'd like to ask "Is
>  >  there a better way to enrich the public good regarding medicine?"
>  >  Between the questionable efficacy of many medical products and a
>  >  laborious FDA approval process, I don't think the current system is a
>  >  net gain; I'd rather see slower (and, hopefully, steadier) progress
>  >  (with a combination of public financing, cheap generics, and looser
>  >  regulations during a "prototype" testing period).  I'd also like to
>  >  see *far* more emphasis placed on prevention rather than treatment;
>  >  prevention is both cheaper *and* more effective.  A healthy diet and
>  >  exercise regimen alone is worth more than the fruit of decades of
>  >  research into new drugs.
>
>
> ### Yeah? How does that solve the problem of e.g. glioblastoma
>  multiforme? Healthy eating? Prevention??? lol

Prevention would help knock down a whole host of easy targets that
claim plenty of lives; when heart disease kills 268 people out of
every 100,000 per year, tossing up an example with a 2 per 100,000
incident rate makes me scratch my head.