[geeks] Global warming, was Mr Bill?

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 08:08:06AM -0500, Dr. Robert Pasken wrote:
>>From some one who DOES NOT WORK for a corporation, your observations
>about the ratio appear very out of whack and appears to be biased by you
>proximity to a group that is only weakly scientific (medical doctors and
>medically related professions). Even though I work in town with two
>large medical complexes and Boeing the overwhelming bulk of scientists
>and engineers in town do not work for either.

Actually you would be surprised. Drugs have to be tested on humans
before they can be sold in the U.S. and someone has to do those tests.

Basicly there are three kinds of tests. The one most people think of
is the tests done at hopsitals for patients that are going to die or
suffer greately if not treated or treated with current medication,
and they take a chance doing the study, but may not have much if any hope 
if they don't. These studies pay for a large portion of hospital expenses,
especialy ones that attached to medical schools. 

Think of the House story arc, where the head of a large pharaceutical company
took over the hospital to use it to sell his drugs, what was not shown was
they would have become his captive testing facility.

The second are drugs that need physician supervision and prescriptions, 
and treat diseases normally treated by doctors. Many doctors get paid
to run studies, or allow their patients to be treated using one drug instead
of another.

The third is the testing for things that need little or no supervision, ranging
from coversion of prescription drugs to over the counter, or non prescription
items. These are still superivsed by doctors, but the people who handle the
patients are usually nurses or medical technicians. 

In all of these cases, the doctors involved make big money and have little or
no chance of being sued. This means high profits for prescibing a specific
drug or involving their patients in a test. 

There are also statistical tests, where doctors report patient statistics,
without any identifying information, or any specific treatment. For example,
the big diabetes studies that have been done. They got paid for them too.

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM