[Tom]

Tom asked the Naked Scientists:

Dr Chris: You have put together a fantastic science show, with interesting concepts presented in a positive and entertaining format.  Keep up the great work.

My question concerns the nature of science research and funding.  If more
(imagine unlimited) funds were available would we have cures for the now
incurable diseases such as cancer, HIV, and lung diseases?

What do you think?

[Andrew K Fletcher]

More money means larger wages and huge profits, which inevitably means that finding a cure will shoot oneself in the foot and take away a very lucrative industry and standard of living. So I suspect the answer to your question may not be as simple as you would hope.

Andrew

[GBSB]

Finding the cure for at the moment incurable health condition like cancer, lung diseases etc will be possible only by challenging many medical dogmas.

Anyone from the medical establishment who attempt to challenge just one medical dogma will putt at risk own lucrative income, social prestige, career etc and very likely he will find them self in same situation as a priest expelled from the church.

[BenV]

I personally think that Andrew and GBSB's opinions are offensive nonsense.  I'm sure there are a percentage of HIV and cancer researchers who are in it for the money, but the vast majority are not.  They also ignore the fact that if anyone discovers a cure for something as big as HIV, they will almost certainly get full funding for every future endeavour.

If we had an unlimited supply of money, we would still have the problem that we don't fully understand either HIV or cancer, and this will take time. HIV would be easier to find a cure for (if we can find out how to stop the virus getting into the system), whereas cancer is a whole different kettle of fish. So unlimited money would help, but if wouldn't happen overnight.

[GBSB]

I personally think that Andrew and GBSB's opinions are offensive nonsense. 

I can’t understand the reason for such reaction.

Anyway here is e few fact that will better explain my previous post.

Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer have made significant discovery what causes the huge increase of breast cancer but is completely ignored by medical industry. In my opinion it is ignored because this discovery doesn’t offer future exploitation of people by medical industry (pharmaceutical and etc) but contrary it will endanger entire breast cancer industry and breast cancer professionals.

Another fact is that entire weight loss industry is based on such misconception that is embarrassing not only for obesity professional but for ever human with average education. (The entire understanding about weight gain/weight loss is build without knowing that metabolic waste contain calories). Till today, no one medical professional has risen voice to point about such a blunder in science.

Before you post next comment it will be useful that you inform you self about fate of Ignaz Sammelweis.

As far as I know Louis Pasteur was driven in same direction  by established medical professionals and just short escape the fate of Ignaz Sammelweis

"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history."  ( George Bernard Shaw )

[Andrew K Fletcher]

BenV

The vast majority of researchers are in the pockets of Big Pharma corporations. In the USA the government supports research but there is a company behind it with a vested interest in the outcome
You simply don’t get the old fashioned go it alone researchers these days who are not in it for the money. And if you do they will be ignored until they die of old age!

Just suppose the cure came from using distilled water injected into a tumour so it interrupts the circulation and starves the mass causing localised cell death.

How many companies would be prepared to invest in the use of distilled water?

How many researchers would go up against the drug Cartels (sorry companies) and challenge their multi billion dollar industry?

The problem is and I have said it before is that researchers are not asked to find a cure. They are asked to find a treatment that is in a pill or injection as this can be marketed. And who can blame them for doing so?

My post said throwing more money at the industries will just make them more profitable. So the original question might be more complicated to address than the reality of research today.

Sorry If you find this offensive it is not meant to be.

Andrew

[Bored chemist]

"I can’t understand the reason for such reaction. "
GBSB, do you really not understand that most people working in research in these fields (and related ones) are not in it for the money?
I work in research; if I wanted cash I'd be an accountant.
I think that's why both Ben and I are offended by Andrew's post.

As for your post, please provide any sort of evidence that current medical theory (or dogma, if you insist) is preventing a cure for these conditions.
Unless you can do that you are slandering those who work in the field. Don't you understand that researchers are, by their nature,interested in finding out what's going on, rather than finding the quickest way to the bank?
I guess that's what Ben finds offensive about your post; it's certainly what bothers me about it.

Andrew,
"How many companies would be prepared to invest in the use of distilled water?"
who cares about companies? The NHS would wet themselves at the thought of such a discovery.
Did you forget that governments are quite capable of getting research done?
"How many researchers would go up against the drug Cartels (sorry companies) and challenge their multi billion dollar industry?"
Well, I would.
I just wonder if anyone else out there would care to "sign up" to the idea that they too would ignore the "company line" and spread the word?

"The problem is and I have said it before is that researchers are not asked to find a cure. They are asked to find a treatment that is in a pill or injection as this can be marketed. And who can blame them for doing so?"
Someone need to sort out the discipline problem then. The researchers keep finding cures for some cancers. They obviously haven't read the company memos.
Or perhaps they understood that the bigger picture is the NHS?
OK Not everyone has the NHS- many people in the world have no healthcare provision. In that case the question of treatment vs cure is moot.
In a lot of other instances the healthcare is paid for by insurance companies.
So the answer to  "How many researchers would go up against the drug Cartels (sorry companies) and challenge their multi billion dollar industry?"
is that they don't need to; the billion dollar insurance companies can do it for them.

[GBSB]

"I can’t understand the reason for such reaction. "
GBSB, do you really not understand that most people working in research in these fields (and related ones) are not in it for the money?
I work in research; if I wanted cash I'd be an accountant.
I think that's why both Ben and I are offended by Andrew's post.

As for your post, please provide any sort of evidence that current medical theory (or dogma, if you insist) is preventing a cure for these conditions.
Unless you can do that you are slandering those who work in the field. Don't you understand that researchers are, by their nature,interested in finding out what's going on, rather than finding the quickest way to the bank?
I guess that's what Ben finds offensive about your post; it's certainly what bothers me about it.

Your reply doesn’t have anything related to contents of my previous two posts.
Very likely, that you have been misunderstood the real meaning of my posts.

I have to say again, I don’t see any ground by anyone to understand my two previous posts as offensive.

On the other side I think I understand you. The heliocentric theory was offensive for the generation of religious professionals and their truly followers. Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo couldn’t do anything about that.
So, I can’t help anyone who is offended with my posts.

If you ignore my future posts you will get my full support for such action.

[Bored chemist]

"I have to say again, I don’t see any ground by anyone to understand my two previous posts as offensive."
Yet 2 of us did.

[BenV]

GBSB, I must admit I was much more offended by Andrew's post than by yours, but you were both implying that researchers put more emphasis on their financial wellbeing than things like finding treatments and cures for major diseases.  That's what I find so offensive.

[Bored chemist]

GBSB,
I'm suprised that you can't see a link between
"Finding the cure for at the moment incurable health condition like cancer, lung diseases etc will be possible only by challenging many medical dogmas. "
 
and
"As for your post, please provide any sort of evidence that current medical theory (or dogma, if you insist) is preventing a cure for these conditions.
Unless you can do that you are slandering those who work in the field. "

I'm sure that many who read this will think the two are linked.
T assert that people are too trapped by dogma to achieve anything is to insult them.