Unfortunately, many of these are grossly underfunded. One of the most important victims of such inadequacy is the FDA. Its overall budget is much too small for anything approaching proper routine inspections. The situation was summarized three years ago by former FDA Associate Commissioner, William Hubbard [15]:
Food inspections have dropped from a robust 50,000 in 1972 to about 5,000 today, meaning that U.S. food processors are inspected on average about every 10 years. The chance of a food product from overseas being inspected is infinitesimal. Most raw materials for our drugs come from foreign producers that are rarely inspected.
The FDA has essentially no budget for testing proposed new drugs or for monitoring the effects of drugs currently used by Americans. This has led to the ludicrous situation in which the testing of proposed new drugs is left under the control of the manufacturers. The FDA also lacks proper facilities and staffing for serious in-house research on drug evaluation methods and basic R&D. The situation is similar for other regulatory agencies such as the EPA.
What we need is a massive increase in funding for government R&D, both to beef up existing labs and to start new ones. Government funding for university research is helpful, but also too low. University research has therefore, for some time, been becoming increasingly dependent on corporate funding. Using federal money to subsidize industry R&D is counterproductive, since it only reinforces the emphasis on promoting private profit as opposed (often) to the public good.
As an example, if R&D organizations within the NIH were generously funded, the kinds of deficiencies pointed out above could be properly addressed. Topics for medical research could be chosen on the basis of potential benefits for people, rather than to maximize opportunities for corporative profit. Similar arguments could be made with respect to virtually every area of technology. The tunes played by the pipers of science are chosen by those who pay the bills. If we want the public to benefit, then the public should pay, and the natural mechanism for this is the government. It is becoming increasingly clear that allowing big corporations to dominate science and technology does not adequately serve the needs of real people.
There is an important secondary benefit of publicly financed science and technology research. If most R&D were carried out in government labs, or in government funded university labs, then large numbers of scientists and engineers, in virtually every field, would be employed in such labs. Relatively unbiased experts would be available to testify about the safety or efficacy of various products, or to help set standards for safety and efficacy, particularly in the medical field. This assumes that strong civil service regulations would protect the independence of laboratory staff members.
Another benefit of publicly controlled R&D is that it could be carried out more openly. Results would be made available to all. (Along these lines, consideration should also be given to reforming our broken patent system [16].) Private companies could compete with one another to commercially exploit the knowledge developed in the public labs. Since US taxpayers would be paying the bills, provision might be made to give American companies some modest advantages, such as invitations to seminars at which preliminary results were discussed.
References
- Priya Ganapati, "Bell Labs Kills Fundamental Physics Research", Wired, August 27, 2008
- Bill Buxton, "The Price of Forgoing Basic Research", Business Week, December 17, 2008
- Bob Norberg, "Railroad car company stops production but SMART trains on track", The Press Democrat, January 6, 2009
- Kerry Roberts, "Where was my bike made?", bikepedlar.com, March 18, 2008
- Jerry Filteau, "Unborn children seen test for untested chemicals", Catholic News Service, 5/1/2007
- Stephen Unger, "Cell Phones: Not Definitely Dangerous?", Ends and Means, 6-19-08
- Rob Harrill, " Wake-Up Call", University of Washington Alumni Magazine, 3/2005
- Melody Petersen, "Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs", Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. click "here" for a review.
- Michael Pollen, "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto", The Penguin Press, January 2008
- Dan Negoianu and Stanley Goldfarb, "Just Add Water", J. American Society of Nephrology, April, 2008
- Satomura K, et al, "Prevention of upper respiratory tract infections by gargling: a randomized trial", Am J. Prev Med 2005, 29(4):302-307. For a summary click here
- Miriam Hill, "Conflicts for FDA committee set to weigh risks of Seroquel", Philadelphia Inquirer, Apr. 4, 2009
- Gardiner Harris, "Drug Maker Told Studies Would Aid It, Papers Say", NY Times, March 19, 2009
- David Michaels, "Doubt is Their Product", Oxford University Press, 2008. (For a blatant example, click "here")
- William Hubbard, "Wrongly Blaming The FDA", Washington Post, May 8, 2006
- Stephen H. Unger, "The Patent Game: Multiple Monopoly", Ends and Means, September 8, 2007
Posted at Unger's Blog.
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