The point of this exercise is that the regulatory capture effectively prevents life saving treatments from reaching the people who need them.
For example, better quality insulin is far more expensive because there's tremendous capture not only in the insulin market but the bioreactors required to make the insulin from bacteria. The process isn't insanely complicated, chemistry-wise, but the fact that only a few can make it and its MUCH better means they can charge more.
Another example is one-off drugs for rare but potentially curable conditions. They are often so expensive that they're pulled from the market because 1% of 1% of the population needs them and you can't use that to drive revenue.
3D printing took off precisely because of the LACK of regulatory capture. Imagine you had an FDA synthesizer that could make something common and simple like blood pressure medication for fractional cents on the dollar. You wouldn't be able to find the plans for this like you could for a 3D printed gun, for example, because the technology requires actual expertise to use. So you'd likely be left buying it from some biotech firm who will happily charge a price equivalent to a lifetime supply of all the drugs it can produce. You once again reach the affordability problem. Not because the technology is that far out of reach or so esoteric, but to be able to even get the device into the people's homes who need it you would need to find centuries of deeply entrenched and well capitalized special interests. Pharma would rather you die from something preventable than leave a single penny uncollected. Normally this would be considered hyperbole but in this case it's absolutely, verifiably true.
You can be certain if any DIY "3d molecule printer" ever took off there would be heavily armed alphabet soup boys at the DEA ready to kill whoever to keep the interests of big pharma in power.
1. Current administration's videos are downvoted heavily. These likely aren't brigades but rather upset constituents.
2. People don't want videos with low dislikes.
(1) probably has to do with the white house being "in close contact with" social media, to paraphrase Psaki.
(2) almost certainly has to do with ad revenue. Without a dislike count you're forced to watch some nominal amount of the video.
I suppose we all saw this coming when Google bought Youtube. It became obvious after "covid misinformation" became the new way to censor anything and everything the ruling party does not like.
edit: lmao downvotes you practically need a throwaway to post an opinion contrary to the lay masses.
This is the pay at top tier universities with extremely exclusive entry criteria.
I was a former PhD student in CS. Washed out due to costs because I was self-funding. It was a local university and an R1 so not "bad" but also not ivy. I had absolutely no problem keeping up with class + research work while also working in industry as I have a lot of time on my hands and no family. I'm still a little sour about the whole thing because I had an incredible and flexible advisor. But costs are costs.
The average STEM PhD student at my university made 13k, up to 20k if you took on summer teaching duties. You did get classes covered, but health insurance came out of your stipend and you still had to cover ancillary fees (gym, technology, etc). So you walked, after taxes, with anywhere between 10 and 12k. They offered me an RA position with my PhD admission that paid approximately 20k. Obviously I could not take it and afford rent. Perhaps if they offered a free dorm and healthcare I could consider choking down 12-15k for 3-4 years to get the pay off in the end.
American PhD programs generally pay below poverty wages. Several PhD student colleagues of mine were on food stamps and lived with 1-3 other PhD students in the run down apartments adjacent to the university. It's abject suffering for the most part and direct-to-phd students often leave in their mid 30s burned out and 10 years behind other students in the workplace. I inquired with several universities about associate professor positions and even those have pretty insane post-doc requirements before being considered. You'll be 15+ years behind your cohort if you, god forbid, decide to go another 3 or so years in a slighty-above-poverty post doc position. At my university these paid around 40-45k, up to 60k for fairly exclusive positions. For what it's worth I make as much as the average industry CS PhD in a software engineering capacity after 10 years of service. I was pursuing it for pleasure and credentialing.
It is not practical, unfortunately, to pursue a PhD as an American unless you are incredibly wealthy or on a visa program. It is not surprising many PhD students are foreign born. No one intends to get rich with a PhD, but it seems even comfort is a far flung dream.
For example, better quality insulin is far more expensive because there's tremendous capture not only in the insulin market but the bioreactors required to make the insulin from bacteria. The process isn't insanely complicated, chemistry-wise, but the fact that only a few can make it and its MUCH better means they can charge more.
Another example is one-off drugs for rare but potentially curable conditions. They are often so expensive that they're pulled from the market because 1% of 1% of the population needs them and you can't use that to drive revenue.
3D printing took off precisely because of the LACK of regulatory capture. Imagine you had an FDA synthesizer that could make something common and simple like blood pressure medication for fractional cents on the dollar. You wouldn't be able to find the plans for this like you could for a 3D printed gun, for example, because the technology requires actual expertise to use. So you'd likely be left buying it from some biotech firm who will happily charge a price equivalent to a lifetime supply of all the drugs it can produce. You once again reach the affordability problem. Not because the technology is that far out of reach or so esoteric, but to be able to even get the device into the people's homes who need it you would need to find centuries of deeply entrenched and well capitalized special interests. Pharma would rather you die from something preventable than leave a single penny uncollected. Normally this would be considered hyperbole but in this case it's absolutely, verifiably true.
You can be certain if any DIY "3d molecule printer" ever took off there would be heavily armed alphabet soup boys at the DEA ready to kill whoever to keep the interests of big pharma in power.