Neuromancer49

joined 1 year ago

Unfortunately there's a lot of truth in that statement, especially in the case of rare disease. It's really difficult to convince a company to spend billions to develop a treatment that will only cure 1 in 100,000 people without letting them charge an arm and a leg, and giving them a very long exclusivity deal so they can continue to charge high prices. So much of that cost to develop is due to the dozens of other failed drugs and formulations they tried on their way to success.

I don't have a solution for the problem, and I'm always a little suspicious of anyone who claims it's easy to solve. I think the UK has a decent idea, the NHS basically decides if the cost of a drug will be covered by insurance by comparing the expected benefit and the current cost. If the ratio is too skewed, they refuse to cover the medication. In theory, this should be an incentive for a company to charge less. In practice, it leads to some companies choosing not to market in the UK.

[–] Neuromancer49@midwest.social 22 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Here's a bit of hope for you, scientists have figured out how to trick the body into producing any protein or antibody they want, through technology like gene therapy and mRNA vaccines. We're about to cure a lot of diseases that used to be 100% fatal. Diseases that kill kids and adults alike.

Most things seem to be getting worse these days, but at least we're making progress in other areas.

[–] Neuromancer49@midwest.social 21 points 1 week ago (9 children)

Unironically, I had to delete this game from my phone because I wasn't getting work done. This game slaps.

Throwing in my $0.02, a correlation study is technically an option, where you look at differences as microplastics increase in concentration. But. my instinct is you would see some really unfortunate covariance - that is, another variable that increases (or decreases) at the same time as microplastics and is known to impact your variable of interest, e.g. socioeconomic status.

[–] Neuromancer49@midwest.social 3 points 4 weeks ago

Jfc just spent 15 minutes trying to cancel a newspaper subscription this morning. Shame I couldn't wait six months to do so.

[–] Neuromancer49@midwest.social 8 points 1 month ago

For those interested in more, I found this People Make Games video to be super interesting. https://youtu.be/lYaDXZ2MI-k?si=pxrioKZq_S7ka9il

[–] Neuromancer49@midwest.social 32 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Ohioan here. You're not wrong. Sorry about JD Vance.

[–] Neuromancer49@midwest.social 22 points 1 month ago (9 children)

For me and mine, it's carrots. Do you know how difficult it is to find carrot-free items? Impossible.

[–] Neuromancer49@midwest.social 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Devastating loss for the science community. I used this database in my PhD, and didn't expect it to shut down ever.

[–] Neuromancer49@midwest.social 11 points 2 months ago

Agreed, seems like a no-brainer. Typically this stuff is handled at an institutional level, with bad professors losing/ failing to achieve tenure. But some results have much bigger implications than just "Uh oh, I cited that paper and it was a bad one." Often, entire clinical pipelines are developed off of bad research, which wastes millions of dollars.

See also, the recent scandals in Alzheimer's research. https://www.science.org/content/article/potential-fabrication-research-images-threatens-key-theory-alzheimers-disease

[–] Neuromancer49@midwest.social 28 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Good riddance, Tom Bombadil. I don't care how merry a fellow he was, those were my least favorite chapters of Fellowship.

[–] Neuromancer49@midwest.social 6 points 2 months ago

Touche, forgot this was PatientGamers. Grim Dawn is basically the same sans MMO. It's the best ARPG I've played like, ever, and it's due for a huge DLC soon. Goes on sale for very cheap often.

Unlike Last Epoch, it's more item-focused. Unlike PoE, the items aren't a total nightmare to optimize...

 

 

Taken through the lens of my very basic binoculars with my mediocre phone camera.

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