When you invent new weight loss drug you can sell millions of pills to anyone.
If you invent new antibiotic it is immediately classified as "reserve antibiotic" and the sale is restricted.
Is that so medical professionals can break it out as a means of last resort to save a patient and ensure the course is finished?
If so that mightn't be a bad idea before we destroy the potential of new antibiotics too by having the general public misuse them render them useless over time.
Oh, and you still have to prove it to be safe and effective through years of clinical trials.
AI is basically still only helping us with the easiest parts, and this particular class is drugs is essentially a limited resource (to avoid force-evolving stains of bacteria that are resistant or immune).
At the end of the day, there's not as much research because there's a finite amount of resources to go around and there are easier / lower hanging fruit.
Are there examples of this? I've heard people say this happens, but I've never heard a concrete example.
I googled 'reserve antibiotic' and found Ceftobiprole, and see it's for sale for $40,000/gram, so clearly it's possible to charge money for a 'reserve'.
Anyway, how does holding antibiotics in reserve help anything? Why let the bugs evolve resistance to one antibiotic at a time, rather than hitting them them with multiple antibiotics and thus raising the evolutionary hurdle to resistance? Was this strategy designed by the bad guys in a Jacky Chan movie?
The government may have contributed to the discovery of nuclear power, but for the last 50 years it has been the largest impediment to nuclear power.
The private sector has never done anything like what NASA has accomplished, and NASA is far and away the most successful explorers and engineers in human history. I have no reason to believe anyone else could do it.
Has Space-X left Earth orbit?
> NASA spent a quarter of a TRILLION dollars… to send out a handful of probes
Look at NASA's budget (or any other source) and you'll find they do far, far more.
The all caps, btw, are against HN guidelines. Why have so many started using them this week?
Nonsense. NASA spent 50 years using disposable lift vehicles. Only the government could bring itself to create single-use articles that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. SpaceX has fixed this by building the Falcon 9, which is not only reusable, it has the highest success rate of any orbital rocket in human history. They're not only "doing something like what NASA has accomplished", they are objectively doing it better and far, far cheaper.
> and NASA is far and away the most successful explorers and engineers in human history. I have no reason to believe anyone else could do it.
No belief necessary. SpaceX has already done it.
> Has Space-X left Earth orbit?
Yes.
> Look at NASA's budget (or any other source) and you'll find they do far, far more.
My point wasn't that they didn't do a bunch of stuff, but rather that they didn't do enough to justify their $0.25 Trillion per-decade budget.
> The all caps, btw, are against HN guidelines.
Ah, I see that in the guidelines. I'll avoid them in the future, thanks!
What exploration and engineering has SpaceX done to match NASA (except in one narrow area). NASA has a telescope at L2 looking back over 13 billion years, a helicopter flying on Mars, it has left the Solar System, it has satellites and probes all over orbit and other planets.
If only the world were as simple. But it isn't, and everyone knows that those with power (in general, governments) will never be regulated effectively enough for everyone - but that doesn't make them never to be trusted with monopoly, nor does it mean that the government's monopoly is bad.
Sorry, I don't really want private militaries nor private tax collection. I'm happy the government runs things like IDs and drivers licenses. In fact, various department of motor vehicles (or whatever your local thing is called) is an excellent example of how a monopoly can be a good or bad experience. I'm originally from Indiana and the motor vehicle folks are great there and the service is easy to use - by design - but it isn't like that everywhere in the US. This has nothing really to do with how "effective" their regulation is.
I'm not sure actual monopolies are better - are you really satisfied with your electricity provider or ISP?
When we can safely give multiple therapies without harming the patient, we do it. Standard HIV treatment uses 4 different drugs to raise the evolutionary hurdle for the virus.
You can't have a government without a military or taxes, so it makes sense that government handles those things. They are requirements for the existence of government, and can't be delegated without existential risk. Medical research is not a core government function.
> I'm happy the government runs things like IDs and drivers licenses.
You'd probably be happier if you weren't required by law to get a license in the first place.
> In fact, various department of motor vehicles (or whatever your local thing is called) is an excellent example of how a monopoly can be a good or bad experience. I'm originally from Indiana and the motor vehicle folks are great there and the service is easy to use - by design - but it isn't like that everywhere in the US. This has nothing really to do with how "effective" their regulation is.
"Sometimes governments can handle basic services" doesn't strike me as a great argument for entrusting the government with complicated, vital services.
> I'm not sure actual monopolies are better - are you really satisfied with your electricity provider or ISP?
The alternative to government monopoly on the development of antibiotics isn't a private monopoly, it's no monopoly, and ideally without regulations which destroy the market incentives to develop antibiotics.
If you have some ideas, do share them.
> rather than hitting them them with multiple antibiotics and thus raising the evolutionary hurdle to resistance?
It was surrounded by some rudeness and is probably a poor idea (but I'm no expert), but it was an idea.
It was a joke. Please laugh.
Plus the normal gut flora would be disrupted by the multiple antibiotics as well, so there would be more work involved in the recovery of the symbiotes and commensals.
If they have novel mechanisms of action, quite a lot. If it's just another entrant in a class of antibiotics for which we have numerous drugs (and thus resistances) already, probably not as much.
You want to preserve your own bacterias, you won't survive without them. Combinations are effective, but they might kill too much of your friendly gut bacterias.
The underlying problem is the lack of political will and cooperation to implement these solutions.
Market-driven capitalism without any government incentives (or disincentives) has no answer here. You just proposed something that's not market-driven capitalism. That the government should get involved in some way to fund and incentivize what it deems to be good for society in the long run. The market on it's own can't do this.
When making brain-dead claims, at least be fair and compare it to the track record of other economic systems. To do otherwise is shameful.