Yeah, Obama has a Nobel peace prize, and Clinton is the inside favorite on another...you think those Norwegians know what they're doing with old Nobel's money, eh?

<OhioChessFan: >

Who are you voting for in the primary tommorrow??

Very good point. (Why do they have Norwegians on the panel????)

<Per Alfred Nobel's will, the recipient is selected by the Norwegian Nobel Committee,>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_...

And that is not <necessarily> such a good thing.

E.g., firms seeking super-profits are competing like crazy trying to outdo each other in producing marginally better $100,000 plus-per-year cancer drugs that just may extend life for only a few weeks --at best.

Big Pharma's quest for big profits has radically distorted health care so that pharmaceutical-based treatments often replace simpler and more effective options. Obese Americans are prescribed new cholesterol-lowering and diabetes-checking drugs rather rather than comprehensive programs that get at the roots of their problems. Big Pharma is racing to produce what promises to be the next big super-profit-drug--a "female Viagra". Great! When that comes out and the prescriptions soar, we can add it to the list of wonderful, new, very costly medical "advances".

"Is Newer Better? Not Always"

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/o...

<But an expensive new drug is not always better than an older, cheaper drug, and sometimes a new technology or treatment that is highly effective for some patients is unnecessary or even dangerous for others.

[...] without curtailing the use of unnecessary, overly costly and even dangerous new technologies and surgical procedures, there is little hope of restraining the relentless rise in health care costs.

Consider the prostate-specific antigen test, which is widely used to screen men for possible prostate cancer. In an Op-Ed piece in The Times in March, Richard J. Ablin, the doctor who discovered prostate-specific antigen, described the test as “hardly more effective than a coin toss” at distinguishing who is at risk, and lamented that the test’s popularity has led to “a hugely expensive public health disaster.”

Each year some 30 million American men undergo the test at a cost of at least $3 billion, and many go on to have surgery, intensive radiation or other damaging treatments that may not have been necessary.

Or consider complex fusion surgery to relieve lower back pain. An article and an editorial in the April 7 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association deplored the rapidly rising use of this surgery, which fuses multiple disks in the spine, in patients who would have done better, and faced fewer risks, with simpler surgery that eases pressure on the nerves without fusion.

<The publication last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of “Higher Social Class Predicts Increased Unethical Behavior” provided fresh fodder for the liberal critique of the Republican Party and the corporate ethic.

The paper, by Paul K. Piff of the University of California, Berkeley, and four colleagues, reports that members of the upper class are more likely than others to behave unethically, to lie during negotiations, to drive illegally and to cheat when competing for a prize.

About the U of Cal Berkeley college professor finding a way to smear conservatism...wow, how out of character of him. You can bet his research methods are iron-tight.

There is a return on expenditure that you are ignoring. >

Much of what I say stems from an overriding concern about the US deficit. The US cannot afford to continue business as usual. Medicine is a large proportion of the US expenditures, much more than anywhere else in the world. We should look for savings, and medicine is an obvious candidate.

I am not ignoring the US expenditure on medical research. In the US, the excess of technologically advanced tests and treatments, many of which do not benefit patients, must provide some incentive for private medical research. I simply posit that the money can be better spent.

Moreover, medical discoveries might not be as uniquely American as you believe. Here, e.g., is a long list of Canadian medical discoveries [ http://www.canadianmedicinenews.com... ]. Not bad for a country with 10% of the population of the US.

< You should be smarter than to take some opaque (in the sense that the truths are obscured) figures and think they mean anything rational. Consider <the big picture>. >

I welcome a judicious examination of the numbers, rather than rhetoric. By such means do we arrive at truths.

Let us examine the numbers more closely, then, according to the big picture. Even the difference between the US and Switzerland, 13.9%- 10.9% = 3% of the US GDP of $14.59 trillion is <$438 billion>, <10> times the 2013 budget request for the entire National Institutes of Health ($30.860 billion [ http://officeofbudget.od.nih.gov/br... : top link, Overview of FY 2013 Presidents Budget]. Just imagine what we could accomplish if that money were spent efficiently.

< who are you to criticize what we spend our money on. >

I am a US citizen and taxpayer, and I do medical research for my livelihood.

<OhioChessFan:>

Thanks. It was a trick question.

i observe that in canadian hospitals, antibiotics used are generic.

<A generic drug (generic drugs, short: generics) is a drug defined as "a drug product that is comparable to brand/reference listed drug product in dosage form, strength, route of administration, quality and performance characteristics, and intended use."[1] It has also been defined as a term referring to any drug marketed under its chemical name without advertising.[2>

ill site an example.

<cefuroxime>

Why is this medication prescribed?
.
Cefuroxime is used to treat certain infections caused by bacteria, such as bronchitis; gonorrhea; Lyme disease; and infections of the ears, throat, sinuses, urinary tract, and skin. Cefuroxime is in a class of medications called cephalosporin antibiotics. It works by stopping the growth of bacteria. Antibiotics will not work for colds, flu, or other viral infections.

<brand names of cefuroxime which are expensive Ceftin, Zinacef, Kefurox>

why used a high priced brand drug?