I have always been suspicious of publicly funded research and development, funding for AIDS, cancer, and other terminal disease research, cloning, stem-cell research, and any other sort of miracle investigation funded with public dollars. It's not that I have anything against new technology, a cure for cancer (my mother actually feel victim to cancer), or revolutionary medicine - I'm simply against the utilization of the public dollar for the creation of knowledge that's going to be copyrighted and marketed for a profit by private enterprise. Publicly funded research should be for openly accessible and for the public good via public services or public products. Why does the state need to subsidize corporations research and development only for them to free up more of their budgets for advertising? What good is a cure for AIDS if nobody can afford it? I know AIDS patients who spend $12,000 a year for treatment. Imagine how much it would cost if there was a miracle cure? Not only would we pay for its development but we'd probably have to subsidize its application through taxes as well, right?
The most famous case of this double subsidy is Taxol, a drug discovered through public research but copyrighted and marketed by Bristol-Myers. (This scandal was actually the subject of a famous Ralph Nader article from The Progressive.) Fortunately, though:
President Bush has signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act
of 2007 (H.R. 2764), which includes a provision directing the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide the public with open online
access to findings from its funded research. This is the first time the
U.S. government has mandated public access to research funded by a
major agency. Alliance for Tax-Payer Access.
Ironic how it had to be Bush, right? Hopefully such action will lead to similar legislation in the future. |
