From this view I see the attacks on the commercialization of biomedical knowledge quite differently. Indeed, l can lump the hypocritical attack of Marcia Angell on FDA pre-emption over the regulation and labeling, the effort to eliminate DTC, CME and private sector investment in academic research, the effort to impose administrative controls on the use of new medicines, the rants of those think that attacking CMPI's funding sources is a rational response to the question of appropriate use of medicines for mental illness into one broad category:
Neo-Luddites... described in a wiki in the following manner:
Opposition to neo-Luddites consists largely of those who believe that technology is beneficial or, at worst, neutral. This opposition has sometimes been hindered by a focus on specific issues, and on occasion by a belief that the benefits of certain new technologies are obvious when in fact many people do not understand the technology in question.
A main concern of technological proponents is to question whether it is always worth saving those things that neo-Luddites seek to protect. The actions of the Luddites are perceived to be emotion-driven and therefore irrational. One form of this objection begins by noting their defense of traditional cultures, and then pointing out culture as a static force enslaves people to its strictures, and is counterproductive to adaptation resulting in cultural if not ethnic extinction. Further arguments would state that elements (real or imagined) of certain traditional cultures that modern societies find abhorrent, such as cannibalism and slavery. Another form is to note some problem that most people would like to minimize or eliminate - such as cancer (which many people agree can eventually be reliably treated or cured), or the sometimes crippling effects of advanced age (see Geriatrics) - and argue that the main effect of neo-Luddism would be to delay or prevent solutions to these problems.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Luddism
I call the whole bundle of anti-commercialization forces Bio-Luddites because the they are a subgroup of the NL. Like the Luddites efforts of old, both the thinking and the administrative apparatus furiously being erected by today's Bio-Luddites will be swept away by a river of innovation that is spreading rapidly than any entity can control. Witness the note of exasperation in this op-ed in the Times of London about how NICE is unable to keep up with the current wave of new cancer drugs. I have highlighted the remarkable last sentence in this one section:
To judge from the genuine shock of oncologists, the decision may yet be revised - as has happened for several other drugs that NICE originally rejected. Yet even if this ruling turns out to have been misguided, NICE is going to have to make more tough choices of this nature. The reason is that the increasing success of medical research will make rationing an ever- greater challenge for the NHS.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article4539008.ece
That's right... rationing must rise to beat back the increasing success of medical research. Anyone want to be on THAT side of the argument.
This won't happen. NICE and NHS are being besieged now by advancing innovation. What will the Bio-Luddites do when the next generation of genomic based medicines come flooding through a high-speed regulatory pipeline that is biomarker based?
It will crumble as all effort to stem innovation do. Unless we or they resort to a police state, a sort of Stalinist approach to health care where the both the intellectual freedom and the scientists who thrive in it are forced to investigate only government approved projects and private companies are reduced to merely formulating the compounds for a royalty.
But that won't happen. The Bio-Luddites are not just losing. The have lost. The equate vitriol and bullying with success. But the opposite is occuring. Innovation is on the march and market forces are and will play a key role in that victory. Just as they did when the Luddites became -- after a few decades -- a bunch of cranks meeting in dusty libraries and socialist bookstores.
