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In reply to the discussion: "Ebola Vaccine Would Likely Have Been Found By Now If Not For Budget Cuts: NIH Director" [View all]kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)You have to look at where NIH and Pharmaceutical companies put their priorities. NIH has plenty of money but politics enters into the equation there also. The high visibility diseases...cancer, heart, get the bulk of the funding because that's what congress wants and pharmaceutical companies, ever mindful of their profit motive, cater their drug research to where they will get the most consumers. They have funds to perform the research for vaccines for Ebola...they just don't think enough people suffer from the disease to make a huge profit. And big Pharma wants the NIH to fund and fund the basic research and then they will step in, license the drugs, and charge the consumers an arm and a leg for something that essentially was mostly funded by taxpayer money in the first place. AND you better believe that many NIH officials and researchers have stocks in all those big Pharma companies. The system stinks from the top to the bottom...the bottom being your medical specialist who also has stock in the companies whose pills they push.
It's really complicated they way it works. But the way it SHOULD work is simple.