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Ray,
The question is this, can a society
encourage disciplined, patient, courageous action or must it simply reward the
expedient?
arthur
I guess it does
both. Sometimes the reward is in the form of money, sometimes as with
Jonas Salk, it is in praise and acclaim.
Society grinds on,
imperfectly, but grinds on.
According to some on the list, this is not supposed to
exist. The market is supposed to take care of everything and the
problem is that the market is being tampered with and so these things
arise. I think that is incorrect. The issue of
profit is one of simple business.
You might compare it to mountain climbing.
Business is like all of the folks who start their climb of Everest at the base
of the Mountain and climb for immediate profit and then go home. Some
make it and become famous in their own way while others perish on the slopes
in the killing field.
There was, however one climber who decided to climb the
mountain unaided, alone and without oxygen. In order to do so he
needed many months and a lot of start up money. He got a network
to fund him and take the film rights and then he started at the Bay of Bengal
and walked across India and all the way to Everest allowing his body to
acclimate to the natural ways of the land and the climate including its
peoples. He carried his cell phone and kept his wife with him but
from the safety of not having to worry about her.
When he went home after his success, his profit was
within for it had cost monetarily much more than he would ever gain
back. But for us he had proven that the person of discipline,
patience and courage could succeed and raise the human spirit beyond the
merely expedient. I've known Doctors like that, and teachers and
many classical artists but very few amongst the business people and in the
economic field. It isn't short term cost effective and so they
either do it quickly or refuse to try. The question is
this, can a society encourage disciplined, patient, courageous
action or must it simply reward the expedient? Market
answers are important and expediency is one side of human existance but can we
not plan for the existance of both. This article in the NYTimes
editorial I find encouraging.
Ray Evans Harrell
November 9, 2003
A New Way to Unclog the Arteries
![L]() ast week's report of an experimental treatment that seems to remove
plaque from clogged arteries is potentially good news for legions of people
threatened with cardiovascular disease. If the findings can be verified in
larger and longer studies, the medical profession may have entered a new era
in treatments to ward off heart attacks and strokes. Yet this therapy might
never have been pursued were it not for a fluke discovery that made patenting
possible. Otherwise there would have been little financial incentive for any
company to develop the treatment for clinical use.
Although the results announced last week are more suggestive than
conclusive, they clearly have scientists excited. Intravenous infusions of a
genetically engineered protein actually caused fatty deposits on artery walls
to diminish in volume and thickness. The rate of reversal, after just five
weekly infusions, far exceeded anything previously achieved with drugs or
diets used for much longer periods. The substance infused contained a
genetically engineered variant of the key protein in high-density lipoprotein
cholesterol, the so-called good cholesterol.
For some time now, pharmaceutical companies have been trying to develop
pills that might stimulate the body to produce its own H.D.L. cholesterol,
thus far with no great success. An alternative approach, infusing H.D.L.
cholesterol directly into the body, was shown effective in animals more than a
decade ago, but the industry never really pursued it. One reason
was that companies saw little economic incentive in using a normal body
protein for therapeutic purposes, since it would be hard to gain patent
protection. A medicine that could be made and sold by anybody had
little potential for profit. That problem was circumvented in this case by
using a mutant form of protein discovered among some 40-plus inhabitants of a
small Italian village. That made the drug unique, and patentable.
Several companies are exploring different approaches to develop their own
H.D.L. pills or infusion therapy, increasing the likelihood that science may
find a new weapon against clogging of the arteries. That's good news. But
the fact that such a promising treatment was widely ignored because there was
no immediate profit potential is disturbing. In theory, the nation's great
web of government-financed medical research institutions should step in to
promote development of the kinds of drugs and therapy that industry regards as
unprofitable. This story makes one wonder how many similar gaps exist in the
vaunted American research establishment.
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