Accountability and the Development of New Medicine

There has been movement after movement, law after law passed that places responsibility on the provider rather than the subject. With gun violence it is not the owners fault that they use the gun for illegal actions, its that the gun was too easy to obtain. Its not an overweight person's fault they eat 100 twinkies per day, its Hostess's fault they didn't point out that 100 twinkies per day is bad for you. And in the medical field, it's not up the purchaser to weigh options, learn about the medicines being prescribed or even to know the risks of what they are doing, it's all on the medicine companies. While the last point is not as cut and dry as the others, it is still a debate. The amount of hoops, tests, validations and approvals that medicinal companies must go through before approving medicines is so vast, that many medicinal opportunities simply make no financial sense. And while we all like to know that the meds we take won't make us sick, we also want the medical community to investigate new ways to solve problems. Unluckily, having a strict testing system eliminates much cutting edge medicines that can't promise vast financial success. If you need to spend 100 million to develop a cure for a disease 100 people have, the motivation for putting forth that money simply isn't there, resulting in no cure being investigated. This article is a good read about how the strict regulation of medical and scientific research and what I see as the recent un-accountability of the general public, while creating a generally safer medicine cabinet, actually sets back the advancement of each respective field. It begs the question: do we want a medicine cabinet that requires no thought, risk, responsibility or understanding on the public's part, or a medicine cabinet that takes no risks and does not find solutions to problems that are not profitable?

And to the people who say "medicine is a right and we deserve to have the best, no matter what the cost." I say to you, your health may be a right, but medicine is a commodity, and commodities are not free. We would not expect GM to develop the best car in the world and not get paid for it, nor should we expect the same from our medical community. Money, advancement, or our lack of responsibility must take a hit and, if one doesn't, that cure for the common cold may be the least of our worries.

http://blogs.forbes.com/carlschramm/2011/03/08/are-we-thwarting-medical-innovation/