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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (4359)	2/8/2008 10:23:19 AM
From: Alastair McIntosh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

I guess you were not aware that proportional to population more Canadians than Americans participated in the study. Just think of how many deaths worldwide and American study will save. Another free rider pops up. A few Americans die to save countless lives. It is very sad for the diabetics who have dies and for their families. I wonder how many would do it all over again to save lives. Unexpected number of deaths forces halt to part of U.S.-Canadian diabetes study The Accord study, which began in 2001, enrolled 10,251 people from the United States and Canada, who, on average, had been diabetic for about 10 years. All had either had cardiovascular events or two heart disease risk factors in addition to diabetes, such as obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels or they were smokers. The study, which included 1,500 people in Canada, was designed to determine whether intensive lowering of blood sugar levels, intensive lowering of blood pressure or treatment of blood lipids (fats) with a triglyceride lowering drug called a fibrate plus a statin drug could reduce the risk of major cardiovascular disease events in Type 2 diabetics at especially high risk of having them. canadianpress.google.com ... Lets do a little arithmetic. 10251 total enrollment less 1500 Canadians leaves 8751 other participants. If all the remainder were from the U.S. a proportional number of Canadians would be would be 963 based on a 9:1 population ratio. Therefore Canadians were enrolled (and presumably died) at a 55% higher rate than U.S. participants.

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (4359)	2/8/2008 11:17:40 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 42652

Other countries do medical and drug research. On basic research I don't know that I'd call them free riders. The diabetes study was apparently a university research study not product development. Considered in isolation other countries might be "free riders" on it, but than we would be free riders on their studies considered in isolation. In this area I'd probably just say that neither the US, nor Europe, nor Japan, Canada, South Korea etc. is a free rider. If I had to guess, I'd guess the US pays for more than its share of medical research, but 1 - That's only a guess, and not even a highly educated one, and 2 - Other countries would have to pay far less than their share before I'd call them free riders. Where they are free riders is on development and testing of products. If they aren't free riders they are at least "cheap riders". Yes there drug companies do development and testing as well, and quite a lot of it, that's not how they are cheap or free riders. But even the research performed by and paid for by foreign companies, and done in other countries is paid for largely in the hopes of making a profit off American consumers.

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (4359)	2/9/2008 6:26:50 PM
From: J_F_Shepard	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

"Just think of how many deaths worldwide and American study will save. Another free rider pops up" You appear to be under the wrong impression that only US drug companies do R&D..... Here is a list of virtually every drug company in the world. You will notice that the vast majority are listed as international. For your own edification click on the button at left of each listing and check where the R&D is being done.... You're going to be surprised that the rest of the world has smart people too..... pharmweb.net