[lbo-talk] subsidizing Big Pharma

[B.]

I finally saw the Mike Judge (Beavis & Butthead,
_Office Space_) movie _Idiocracy_, filmed
unflatteringly in Austin, and this theme was sort of
taken up in the movie, depicting a future where the
overwhelming bulk of pharma-company research went into
helping men get laid and stave off baldness, rather
than much less profitable areas. _Idiocracy_ is
cloaked in a thick stew of low brow humor and b-movie
schlock (as well as misconceptions about the theory of
evolution and maybe a bit of misanthropy) but the
underlying message was pretty timely. And funny.
(Water replaced by sports drinks, etc.)

-B.

Doug Henwood wrote:
> Wall Street Journal - January 26, 2007
>
> SCIENCE JOURNAL
> By SHARON BEGLEY   
>
> Why Nonprofits Fund
> For-Profit Companies
> Doing Drug Research
>
> Science has made paralyzed rats walk, cured mice of
cancer and eliminated Alzheimer's in more lab rodents
than you can count. Human patients? Not so much.
>
> "There's frustration that developments from academic
labs don't get picked up by [drug and biotech]
companies," says Dayton Coles. As a board member of
the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, he has seen
promising discovery after promising discovery emerge
from the university labs that JDRF has funded, but
none has turned into a cure for type-1 diabetes, which
his daughter has.