Well, this is relatively early Sunday morning, and I had intended to go flying but it looks like that might be going onto the back burner.

Why? Well it is a bit draughty (up around 40kph) outside and easterly which is not helping because of the horse stud over the road from the flying field. I have my daughter and her partner with us for the weekend and while I have been brewing up a double batch of pancake and lemon, I have been listening to a feature programme on the radio about the modern drug industry.

Factoid 1 - Between 1979 and 1999 some 1400 drugs were approved for general use. Of those, only 13 were for the treatment of tropical diseases. Of those 14, only 2 were for the treatment of drugs that were unlikely to be contracted by people outside of the third world.

Factoid 2 - The "greatest advances" in drug development of the past 20 years have been in response to "manufactured diseases".

To illustrate -

More people suffer from and are killed by malaria than heart disease, diabetes and lung cancer combined. The only treatments available are palliative; they minimise the symptoms not cure the disease. There are no treatments for most of the severe tropical diseases - sleeping sickness, elephantiasis, trichanosis(sp?) and so on.

Why? Well it all has to do with the cost of research, the cost of proving, but most important of all the ability of the market to pay for the approved drug.

So as a result it is far better business to "manufacture" a disease like "prostate disease" and to then develop a drug to cure it. "Prostate disease"? Men over the age of about 50 have been getting up in the middle of the night for thousands of years - it is not a disease.

Osteoporosis? According to the FDA (as reported on the programme), the "proof" of osteoporosis was the result of combining bone density study statistics for 50 to 90 year old women into one statistical group.

Think of the investment in viagra as another example. Anyone ever considered that erectile failure might be more generally the consequence of aging than of a "disease" requiring treatment? Or could it be caused by "over-use"? Or "under-use" even?

Think of children with "behaviour problems". Oh NO!!!!! They got a "disease" called "Attention Defective Hyperactivity Disorders"!! Within a very short time we have a series of very powerful psychotropic drugs all ready and waiting to treat each and every one of them. Does it matter that Ritalin and another of its derivatives was found to cause liver damage with extended treatment. Fifty years back, probably 90% of those kids would have been "cured" by the application of simple punishments - like a good smack or three on the bum, or a clip on the ear.

The current one - in this country at least - is "Type 2 Diabetes". It is expected that millions will be needed for the treatment of this "disease", most of which by far will go to the drug companies. What is the cause? Too much of a poor diet. What might happen if those millions of dollars were spent on school lunches and teaching unfashionable subjects like nutrition and home management in our schools? Not, mind you, as electives but as compulsory subjects.

On the other side of the coin is the drug companies' attitude to supplying drugs to treat HIV/AIDS to the third world, Africa in particular, How long did it take, and what was the threat level applied before it was "agreed" to supply at a cost that those countries (actually their first world beneficiaries) were prepared to pay.

On reflection, it is not limited to drugs. One of the most debilitating medical problems that the third world suffers is eye cataracts. Until Fred Hollowes came on the scene, a very simple operation to remove the cataract and replace the lens could cost US100 to US200. Of that cost probably 90% was the cost of the artificial lens. Hollowes realised this and solved the problem by encouraging third world nations to establish their own lens factories. Now, due to his work, the cost of eye cataract surgery is a small fraction of what it was. As a side benefit, the operation is now an out-patient procedure instead of full hospitalisation.

Now I can hear loud and clear the turbine like sound of good capitalists spinning, in their graves and not. Well I am big enough to admit that there is a problem here. Do I have a solution? No. It is another of the challenges that our society is going to have to solve.