Discussion this morning on the Today programme about drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease.
Three times presenter Sarah Montague asked two representatives from the medical establishment (one from a university, one from a big pharma company) whether relying on the large pharmaceutical companies is the best way to research and develop new treatments. Each time the medical establishment sidestepped the question. Evasive, misleading, intellectually dishonest.
Because of the high cost of developing a new drug the pharmaceutical companies will only (ONLY) develop drugs they can patent and sell at a profit.
They also have a vested interest to suppress and belittle research that shows the efficacy of low cost commonly-owned sources of new medicines.
There is an enormous body of anecdotal evidence, going back centuries and developed in all cultures and regions of the world, that shows plant-based traditional medicines can be used to treat a vast range of medical conditions.
This is belittled by the medical establishment as "herbal" medicine, or "alternative" medicine, or "quack science".
Because common plants are common, and grow everywhere, they cannot be patented.
The big pharmaceutical companies have no interest in researching these plants unless they can identify the active constituents, synthesise them, and sell the patented formula to the NHS.
Thus to take one example from many thousands, Sutherlandia frutescens (a plant found in South Africa) has an anecdotal history of being useful to treat some forms of cancer.
Medicines made from this plant will cost next to nothing.
And yet no pharmaceutical company is researching this possible cure for some forms of cancer.
They are not researching it because they cannot find a way to make money from it.
They would be seriously alarmed if Sutherlandia frutescens (or any other common plant) was brought forward as a cure for some forms of cancer as it would undermine all the expensive patented drugs they are already selling into the NHS.
Thus the pharmaceutical companies commission PR companies to alarm the general population with tales of untested medicines, and anyone interested in this body of medicine is ridiculed for "quack therapies" and "bad science" and people like Ben Goldacre write supercilious articles in the Guardian.
Obviously patients should not be given untested medicines.
However the real scandal is that the medical establishment is not researching and testing medicines from common plants with a history of efficacy, irrespective of whether money can be made from them.
Three times presenter Sarah Montague asked two representatives from the medical establishment (one from a university, one from a big pharma company) whether relying on the large pharmaceutical companies is the best way to research and develop new treatments. Each time the medical establishment sidestepped the question. Evasive, misleading, intellectually dishonest.
Because of the high cost of developing a new drug the pharmaceutical companies will only (ONLY) develop drugs they can patent and sell at a profit.
They also have a vested interest to suppress and belittle research that shows the efficacy of low cost commonly-owned sources of new medicines.
There is an enormous body of anecdotal evidence, going back centuries and developed in all cultures and regions of the world, that shows plant-based traditional medicines can be used to treat a vast range of medical conditions.
This is belittled by the medical establishment as "herbal" medicine, or "alternative" medicine, or "quack science".
Because common plants are common, and grow everywhere, they cannot be patented.
The big pharmaceutical companies have no interest in researching these plants unless they can identify the active constituents, synthesise them, and sell the patented formula to the NHS.
Thus to take one example from many thousands, Sutherlandia frutescens (a plant found in South Africa) has an anecdotal history of being useful to treat some forms of cancer.
Medicines made from this plant will cost next to nothing.
And yet no pharmaceutical company is researching this possible cure for some forms of cancer.
They are not researching it because they cannot find a way to make money from it.
They would be seriously alarmed if Sutherlandia frutescens (or any other common plant) was brought forward as a cure for some forms of cancer as it would undermine all the expensive patented drugs they are already selling into the NHS.
Thus the pharmaceutical companies commission PR companies to alarm the general population with tales of untested medicines, and anyone interested in this body of medicine is ridiculed for "quack therapies" and "bad science" and people like Ben Goldacre write supercilious articles in the Guardian.
Obviously patients should not be given untested medicines.
However the real scandal is that the medical establishment is not researching and testing medicines from common plants with a history of efficacy, irrespective of whether money can be made from them.
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