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It is easier to create new drugs if you are not subject to strict regulations and if you are not afraid of lawsuits from people that participate in trials.

What slows down the research in USA is the safety mechanisms imposed by FDA. This is almost the same for every country that is not a dictatorship.

source: worked a decade for pharmaceutical companies.

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There's a more general and more interesting pattern at work here. As humanity, we have grown too fond of our safety and comfort over the past 50 years to the point of being unwilling to take the risks that are necessary for us to grow further. The levels of risk-aversion we have reached, especially in developed countries is actually akin to a terminal disease that is already ensuring the demise of most "western powers". It's paradoxical in a very beautiful way.. that will eventually serve to remind us that life isn't really about being safe and secure. Safety, security and privacy are unnatural values that have been drilled into us, quite elaborately, over generations. They are fake values that only serve to hold us back and inhibit our innate greatness.

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