Brendano

Medical Research May 6, 2009

        An argument against universal health care is that it would hurt medical research on medical care and prescription drugs.  However, most research is already conducted by the government. According to the website the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency that conducts and supports medical research and it annually invests more than 28 billion dollars in medical research. 

       Pharmaceutical companies are more concern with marketing than research. Most early research of prescription drugs is also funded by the government. “Drug companies are invited in for the later stages of “product development,” the formulation and marketing of new drugs. AZT for HIV patients is one example. After the drug was found to be effective, marketing rights went to the drug company.”

      AZT was synthesized in a lab by Dr. Richard Beltz at the National Cancer Institute in 1961. It was developed as a treatment for cancer but, Dr. Beltz found it didn’t destroy cancer cells. March 20, 1987, AZT was license as an AIDS drug. It was produced later by Burroughs-Wellcome Company (now Glazo) and sold at a high price.

      For Profit health insurance in the U.S. has a consequence for medical research. ” It is also important to note that studies show that, in the U.S., the number of clinical research grants declines in areas of high HMO penetration.” Reducing cost must be more important than medical research to save people lives.

      Furthermore, many important discoveries occur in countries where there is universal health coverage. For example, The treatment for juvenile diabetes by transplanting pancreatic cells was developed in Canada. Universal health care would not hurt research and development of new medical technologies in the U.S.