US spend massive and massive about of money on cancer research compared to Japan, South Korea, Singapore, China and Taiwan?

[CharonY]

23 minutes ago, nec209 said:

So the US government likes giving money to universities.

Regardless of country, Universities are generally the main place of research and they are funding by governments. As percentage of GDP countries with the highest investment in research are Israel, South Korea and then the US (but it also has the largest economy).

May I add that although I have been participating, I have absolutely no idea where this thread is going?

[nec209]

18 hours ago, CharonY said:

Regardless of country, Universities are generally the main place of research and they are funding by governments. As percentage of GDP countries with the highest investment in research are Israel, South Korea and then the US (but it also has the largest economy).

May I add that although I have been participating, I have absolutely no idea where this thread is going?

Could there also be culture difference where Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan and other Asian countries view death as more normal and part of life? Where as in the US and western countries some thing very bad and we need to fight it?

[CharonY]

39 minutes ago, nec209 said:

Could there also be culture difference where Japan, China, South Korea, Taiwan and other Asian countries view death as more normal and part of life? Where as in the US and western countries some thing very bad and we need to fight it?

No, this sounds at best like a simplified them vs us narrative. They do have highly advanced health care systems and significantly higher life expectancy than the US for example. They clearly care very much about not dying.

Edit: listen, if you really want a simplified, inaccurate narrative, how about this:

In Western countries there is a bigger emphasize that health is something that can fixed by some cure or treatment. In at least some cultures in Asia, there are some schools of thoughts that are more holistic, focusing on wellness and maintenance of health (including more care for balanced diets). But again, this is very simplified and anecdotal.

[nec209]

Why does the US spend massive and massive about of money on cancer research compared to Japan, South Korea, Singapore, China and Taiwan?

If you look at this https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(23)00182-1/fulltext

Well than China is 4%, Japan is 4%, UK is 9%, USA is whopping 57%

From the article 57% of all cancer research funding comes from the US.

So not sure why the US is so high compared to other countries and why those countries are so low.

According to this, the US accounts for more than half of recent cancer funding, with China and Japan just under 5%

https://ascopost.com/news/june-2023/global-funding-for-cancer-research-2016-2020/

That is so odd I wonder if the reason the US spends so much more money on cancer research is because the lobbyist is so much more massive in the US the pharmaceutical companies and universities are so massive in the US and are lobbying the government to spend money on cancer research.

Where those other countries only have a handful of pharmaceutical companies and universities unlike the US that has hundreds of pharmaceutical companies and universities.

But again some one could ask why those countries have only handful of pharmaceutical companies and universities?

[LuckyR]

Yeah, it's Psychology. Cancer tugs at heartstrings because people we know commonly die either from or with it. But since it's generally a disease of the elderly, solving it doesn't actually contribute much to human longevity. Diseases of the young are much more tragic when viewed through the lens of cutting life short, but accidents, murder and suicide are too politically charged (and mundane) to inspire much energy. 

[CharonY]

Under Obama, there was a push to push cancer research forward under the auspice of the NIH (it was called a Cancer Moonshot). I assume that this did not happen in other countries.

57 minutes ago, nec209 said:

Where those other countries only have a handful of pharmaceutical companies and universities unlike the US that has hundreds of pharmaceutical companies and universities.

On the other hand, you have countries like Germany and Switzerland export more pharmaceuticals than the US (German pharmaceutical exports are double that of the US). It is true that In absolute production the USA dominates and they also have the largest market share. But I would not consider the countries to only have a handful. Many of the big pharma countries are not originally from the US, suggesting that the US is a highly attractive market. In part this is because the US also has the highest pharmaceutical consumption, despite being much smaller than China, the second-largest consumer.

[exchemist]

57 minutes ago, nec209 said:

Why does the US spend massive and massive about of money on cancer research compared to Japan, South Korea, Singapore, China and Taiwan?

If you look at this https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(23)00182-1/fulltext

Well than China is 4%, Japan is 4%, UK is 9%, USA is whopping 57%

From the article 57% of all cancer research funding comes from the US.

So not sure why the US is so high compared to other countries and why those countries are so low.

According to this, the US accounts for more than half of recent cancer funding, with China and Japan just under 5%

https://ascopost.com/news/june-2023/global-funding-for-cancer-research-2016-2020/

That is so odd I wonder if the reason the US spends so much more money on cancer research is because the lobbyist is so much more massive in the US the pharmaceutical companies and universities are so massive in the US and are lobbying the government to spend money on cancer research.

Where those other countries only have a handful of pharmaceutical companies and universities unlike the US that has hundreds of pharmaceutical companies and universities.

But again some one could ask why those countries have only handful of pharmaceutical companies and universities?

I suspect it is because American Big Pharma sees there is so much money to be made from cancer drugs. People will pay a lot to keep it at bay and, as the population ages, more people have time to get cancer before they snuff it from something else. So it's lucrative. I notice the UK spends a disproportionate amount compared with others too. But then there are some notable Big Pharma companies based in the UK, too. 

 

[CharonY]

I don't think that the article is talking about companies per se. The article is about research funding, and while companies have access to certain portions of it (often they require academic collaboration), IIRC the vast majority was academic funding.

I believe the NIH is the single largest organization for health research in the world.

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

Merged with previous thread covering same subject

 

7 hours ago, nec209 said:

That is so odd I wonder if the reason the US spends so much more money on cancer research is because the lobbyist is so much more massive in the US the pharmaceutical companies and universities are so massive in the US and are lobbying the government to spend money on cancer research.

As we had previously discussed, it’s probably strongly influenced by that and the rest of for-profit healthcare

[nec209]

15 hours ago, swansont said:

!

Moderator Note

Merged with previous thread covering same subject

 

As we had previously discussed, it’s probably strongly influenced by that and the rest of for-profit healthcare

I guess it is a trade off in the US if you are sick or dying it cost lots of money for treatment and the US does not have universal healthcare so it cost lot of money so big incentive for drug research.

Well other countries if you sick or dying it is dirt cheap for treatment or the government pays for your treatment in universal healthcare. So not big incentive to drug research.

[swansont]

28 minutes ago, nec209 said:

I guess it is a trade off in the US if you are sick or dying it cost lots of money for treatment and the US does not have universal healthcare so it cost lot of money so big incentive for drug research.

Well other countries if you sick or dying it is dirt cheap for treatment or the government pays for your treatment in universal healthcare. So not big incentive to drug research.

The amount spent on research also has to be placed in the context of a nation’s economy, as CharonY pointed out some time ago, and the available infrastructure. The US GDP is 10x that of the UK, so spending a lot more shouldn’t be surprising. And if the company doing the research is in the US, then the money gets spent in the US. Other countries still send people to the US to get educated, so one might think the infrastructure for academic research might be better. Spending money is moot if there’s nobody/no facilities to do the research.

[nec209]

On 12/23/2024 at 12:05 PM, swansont said:

The amount spent on research also has to be placed in the context of a nation’s economy, as CharonY pointed out some time ago, and the available infrastructure. The US GDP is 10x that of the UK, so spending a lot more shouldn’t be surprising. And if the company doing the research is in the US, then the money gets spent in the US. Other countries still send people to the US to get educated, so one might think the infrastructure for academic research might be better. Spending money is moot if there’s nobody/no facilities to do the research.

Is it cancer rates lower in China and Japan unlike the UK and the US?

[iNow]

1 hour ago, nec209 said:

Is it cancer rates lower in China and Japan unlike the UK and the US?

Is Google broken where you live?

[swansont]

1 hour ago, nec209 said:

Is it cancer rates lower in China and Japan unlike the UK and the US?

Easily found with a search engine (sort of. the wcrf promises the data by country but it’s not on the page they served me)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cancer_rate

US is ninth highest for cancers excluding non-melanoma skin cancer (303 per 100k people). Japan 30th at 265,  China 62nd at 200.

(I suspect how long you’ve had heavy industrialization pouring carcinogens into the environment has an impact.)

[nec209]

On 12/23/2024 at 12:05 PM, swansont said:

The amount spent on research also has to be placed in the context of a nation’s economy, as CharonY pointed out some time ago, and the available infrastructure. The US GDP is 10x that of the UK, so spending a lot more shouldn’t be surprising. And if the company doing the research is in the US, then the money gets spent in the US. Other countries still send people to the US to get educated, so one might think the infrastructure for academic research might be better. Spending money is moot if there’s nobody/no facilities to do the research.

Yea the countries GDP may be better way to look at it than population.

 

 

The US is 29 and Germany is 4.7 and Japan and India is 4.

So if Japan and India is 4 and that means the US is 7 times bigger than Japan or India. So if they spend 4% that be 28% if their GDP was big as the US.

The UK is 3.5 that means the US is 8 times bigger per GDP would be 28.

The US still spends most per GDP on cancer research than second in line is the UK.

China is pathetic they hardly spend any thing.

[swansont]

20 minutes ago, nec209 said:

China is pathetic they hardly spend any thing.

Lower cancer rate and probably less infrastructure. Can’t really spend on cancer research if you don’t have research facilities and staff to run them, and train researchers.

[nec209]

On 12/29/2024 at 1:05 PM, swansont said:

Lower cancer rate and probably less infrastructure. Can’t really spend on cancer research if you don’t have research facilities and staff to run them, and train researchers.

Other thing is lot of other countries healthcare is way cheaper than the US. Where the US is most expensive in the world and per GDP the US spends most on healthcare despite out control healthcare cost and no state run healthcare. This may be big incentive for profit treatment in the US.

Where countries like South Korea, Japan and China healthcare may be dirt cheap there and doctors get paid less than what they would be working in the US so is scientist there working getting way less than what they would working in the US and so this may be why the government spends so little money if doctors and scientist don’t get much money and chemotherapy is really cheap there.

There may not lot of money to be made there per profit so there is less of incentive for treatment or research.

Edited yesterday at 12:21 AM by nec209

[zapatos]

53 minutes ago, nec209 said:

no state run healthcare.

How do you define 'state run'? What would you call Medicare and Medicaid?

[swansont]

8 minutes ago, zapatos said:

How do you define 'state run'? What would you call Medicare and Medicaid?

That’s the payment vehicle - single payer insurance - not the healthcare itself. It’s not doctors and nurses on the state payroll, providing the services.

[zapatos]

28 minutes ago, swansont said:

That’s the payment vehicle - single payer insurance - not the healthcare itself. It’s not doctors and nurses on the state payroll, providing the services.

I'm not that familiar with the details of who employs the healthcare providers. Is that the standard method is most western countries, where they are essentially employed by the government?

[swansont]

10 hours ago, zapatos said:

I'm not that familiar with the details of who employs the healthcare providers. Is that the standard method is most western countries, where they are essentially employed by the government?

Not sure. I’ve read things that show the NHS in the UK employs doctors. Canada, as I recall, is a single-payer system.

The advantage of medicare is that it strips out the middleman (for-profit insurance) that only seems to add cost and deny service when it threatens profits.

[CharonY]

12 hours ago, zapatos said:

I'm not that familiar with the details of who employs the healthcare providers. Is that the standard method is most western countries, where they are essentially employed by the government?

I think only few countries are actually government employees. Canada is weird, it is single payer, but MDs are basically self-employed and often functionally incorporated and they bill the provinces. They are fully or partially government employees if they work in hospitals, IIRC.

Most other countries are not single payer but often have a mixed system. But there self-employment makes more sense (plus government run facilities).

[Phi for All]

37 minutes ago, CharonY said:

I think only few countries are actually government employees. Canada is weird, it is single payer, but MDs are basically self-employed and often functionally incorporated and they bill the provinces. They are fully or partially government employees if they work in hospitals, IIRC.

And they manage to have universal healthcare, along with a minimum wage that's twice the US rate, while their GDP is only half of California's with twice the population. Most US states have a higher GDP than Canada, none have healthcare coverage for all. 

[CharonY]

3 hours ago, Phi for All said:

And they manage to have universal healthcare, along with a minimum wage that's twice the US rate, while their GDP is only half of California's with twice the population. Most US states have a higher GDP than Canada, none have healthcare coverage for all. 

Generally speaking, single-payer systems have on average lower cost but there are often issues compared to mixed models. The US is the highest in cost, with worse outcomes on average. As expected the outcome is heavily skewed in the US by income.

Mixed models can be fairly odd but most cost are publicly funded with some elements sometimes requiring private insurance. In some systems you can also opt out and do full private, but typically with strong limitations (e.g., unable to return to public system once out). Each of them is on average doing better than the US.

But as Swansont mentioned, a key element in all of those (except US) is that the systems are set up to cover expenses, rather than trying to maximize profit by denying care. Also, it is easier to blame  and demand systemic change from the government (and many folks are angry about their health care, even if it is better than in the US), rather than from companies.