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If US big pharma is so great, why is US life-expectancy declining? Not just since the pandemic but even before then. Biotech and pharma shares were making huge gains in that period 2014-2019, yet life expectancy was stagnant at best. We can toss Tabarrok's thesis that pharma shares = life expectancy straight out the window. Consider US life expectancy compared to peers: https://x.com/The_OtherET/status/1857207679011180938
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/djuspr
https://www.investing.com/indices/nasdaq-biotechnology-components
Why are there umpteen billions going into a massively drawn-out and complicated drug research process that barely seems to produce many good new drugs - and pennies for anti-aging research?
Why was there a massive opiate crisis, founded in part due to dodgy advertisements and concealment of risks?
Why is such an enormous proportion of the US population on anti-depressants? Why are so many children on ADHD medications and adderall? Overmedicalization has been linked to all kinds of problems.
Capitalism is not an unalloyed good. I believe in the market system. I believe it's generally superior to central planning and state-directed approach. But there are roles for regulation or state enterprises. Of course regulation can also create perverse incentives which I suspect is a big contributor to the problem. But free market fundamentalists like Tabarrok are nearly as bad as banocrat regulatory fiends and communists.
The fentanyl dealer on the street is nearly universally considered a social malefactor, I doubt Tabarrok would defend this particular class of entrepeneur. What about the pharma exec who launders standard human behaviour (unsatisfaction with a boring life or children not sitting still in class) as a disease, intensively advertises a 'cure' which is only partially effective and causes all kinds of side-effects later down the track? Regulation is needed to confront both of them.
The whole US health system is a Gordion knot that needs to be decisively cut through by some Alexander.
"The fentanyl dealer on the street is nearly universally considered a social malefactor, I doubt Tabarrok would defend this particular class of entrepeneur."
Legalization of drugs is a standard libertarian belief.
"If US big pharma is so great, why is US life-expectancy declining?"
It was declining due to covid and a bunch of people choosing to put fentanyl in their bodies. Many Americans choose to be fat. There was a time when individual responsibility was something conservatives believed in.
If the state lets fentanyl be sold in supermarkets, prices will fall and consumption will rise.
If the state shoots fentanyl dealers dead, prices will rise and consumption will fall.
If the state subsidizes corn production, HFCS will get added to more things and food will become more fattening...
Each individual choice swims in a sea of policy, that's why policy exists.
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Why are there so many firefighters at house fires?
Firefighters arriving after the fire starts is perfectly fine.
However, if the firefighters are wandering around with petrol and matches before the fire starts, then we have problems - especially when it comes to paying them a hefty bill for their services.
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