Quote:
Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I hear that argument a lot for businesses generally--they underinvest in things for which the return comes too slowly. While there may be such a systematic bias, I don't see how one can distinguish between using taxpayer dollars to overcome that bias with respect to stem cells, but not with respect to a host of other things that business purportedly irrationally fail to invest in.
Moreover, even within the medical research arena, the distribution of federal funding is influenced more by interest group politics than any rational calculus of risk and reward. I'm not sure how one can pick out stem cell research for some favored treatment just because it offers such promise.
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1) Research into disease prenetion and cures is just not another business. It is a national security issue. We spend all this money to protect the health of Americans from attacks but what about protecting americans from disease.
2) Just because most money is distributed by political influence does not make this wrong because there is no political interest. That is crazy. Stem Cell research does offer promise so it should be funded.
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