No I am saying they have invested but there are limits to what can be expected. From what I read, they’re not hoarding the cure to keep the price high for Western tourists, they’re not refusing to manufacture nor are they using intellectual property law to stop anyone else from manufacturing additional doses and in fact have partnered with another company to increase production.
I am saying your expectations of the industry are way off. You work in energy or at least you did a few years ago, right? Is your company evil if they don’t divert all their assets from their current business and redirect them to providing electricity to remote villages in sub Saharan Africa? It’s a ridiculous bar to clear.
The big question going to be how society responds to the inevitable deadly/serious complications that will happen more often just by sheer number of people on the GLP meds. My inclination is the benefits are so obvious medically and also fit with a common desire (to lose weight) that society going to tolerate quite a bit of bad outcomes. Although im sure the lawyers are salivating over the future lawsuits
Indeed, there would have to be very negative long term effects given the apparent alternative. From the journal article I quoted above:
In a 2001 Diabetes Care article (Boyle et al. 2001), investigators at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) predicted 29 million U.S. cases of T2D would be present in 2050. Unfortunately, the 2001 prediction of 29 million was reached in 2012! For 2012, the American Diabetes Association reported that 29 million Americans had diagnosed and undiagnosed T2D, which was 9% of the American population (Dwyer-Lindgren et al. 2016). More rapid increases in T2D are now predicted by the CDC than in the previous estimate. The CDC now predicts a doubling or tripling in T2D in 2050. The tripling would mean that one out of three U.S. adults would have T2D in their lifetime by 2050 (Boyle et al. 2010), which would be >100 million U.S. cases. The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) reports T2D cases worldwide. In 2015, the IDF reported that 344 and 416 million North American (including Caribbean) and worldwide adults, respectively, had T2D. Furthermore, the IDF predicts for 2040 that 413 and 642 million, respectively, will have T2D. In sum, T2D is now pandemic, and the pandemic will increase in numbers without current apparent action within the general public.
this is only a semi-serious response, but i always enjoyed seeing the viral videos of like russia or somewhere that will give you a free subway ticket for squatting 20 times or jumping jacks in front of the kiosk screen.
i agree that subsidizing health would be a huge benefit for all parts of life, but i fear it’s like climate change in that no one wants to put in the investment because the benefits are down the road in the next administrations.
Pretty good book on the benefits of exercise. Summary: If you want to lose weight, forget it. But if you want to feel better and live a little longer at least do some walking.
“We’re gonna force you to exercise” is probably a less effective campaign message than “Free cake with no consequences!” Hell, half the country complains about free vaccines and actively seeks ineffective government.
Still, as an investment in society, promoting regular exercise could warrant as much expense and effort as, say, the federal transportation infrastructure (road, rail, ports, and airports). I think such a system could be based on infrastructure, access and incentives alone, but it would perhaps require trillions in investment. (Call it, “No pain, No gain!”). It could require a depression/WW2 level shock to get going.
However, we are in an era of unprecedented surplus and widespread exercise is likely the least cost avenue to significantly enhanced general welfare, so I think it’s at least worth public discussion, along the lines of, say, rural electrification or universal healthcare.
Yep, infrastructure is huge. If you were taking public transportstion everywhere and having to walk the last half mile to your destination you get a hugr amount of exercise just going about your daily tasks.
Went to Vegas earlier this month. The flight out was filled with long delays, so I was exhausted when I got there. Allergies kicked in, blah blah blah. Ended up not exercising for about three and a half weeks. Finally felt I could get in a workout yesterday. I feel much better today than I have the last three weeks. I think as we get older, it’s even more important to your “feel good” that you exercise in some kind of structured way at least three or four times a week.
I’ll try again. Because we are clear talking past each other.
I’m not saying your company is evil for not funding billions of dollars in medical research for Malaria. They are private companies doing private company things.
However. It is clear (and obvious, I thought) that allowing decisions around allocation of R&D to private companies results in worse outcomes for Malaria, and in this case, evil outcomes.
I do work in Energy, and it’s exactly the same there.
Private energy companies are not doing enough to invest in low carbon energy fast enough to address climate change. This does not make them evil. But allowing private companies to make these decisions has resulted in the hottest two years on record.
Without massive intervention by government private energy companies would have us blowing past 7 degrees of global warming. Like, that’s the completely agreed climate consensus. 2 degrees is considered catastrophic. 7 degrees is indescribable.
This too, is an evil result, from private decisions.
As a side note. Some energy companies definitely are evil or do evil things, such as when they fund climate change denial.
As a side side note. Some pharmaceutical companies were definitely evil when the were lobbying against use of generic aids drugs in Africa. Resulting in the avoidable deaths of millions of people.
This decline in this chart would have shifted about 8 years to the left and taken off the peak if the US pharmaceutical industry had just got out of the way of India selling generics to Africa in the early 2000s.
Am I odd for believing that the goal should be to strive to build healthy habits in order to live a healthy life that doesn’t require a single pharmaceutical assist?
I don’t think so, at least I hope not because that’s my general thought too. That instinctual response is probably why this whole thing feels a little weird to me, that plus a general distrust of our culture/society when it comes to superficial attractiveness and the assumption that these drugs will just contribute to that.
It’d be nice, but there’s so much money to be made in selling excess food to people, it’s like the whole world is conspiring against you. Not everyone is going to win that battle.
