Food for the Mind

Dean Baker again goes far in a short Post. Health Care Costs stand more as function of Government protection, rather than any form of Market protection. What are these Government protection systems? Patent extensions, enjoined Licenses, mandatory Internships and Residencies, prohibition of local Druggist compounding of Drugs, and mandatory floor pricing for medical services. Limited Medical School Certification and controlled Enrollment is another aspect. Ludicrous is the concept of Americans attending inferior foreign Medical Schools to get Training which qualifies under American law, because American Medical Schools will not accept the extended Student body, due to limited Enrollment, Poor Grades of the Students, or insufficient Undergraduate work by the Students (I want to be able to take my Med Boards, as I attended the Easter Island Med School). There is the counter-cyclical Thought that if you know the necessary material, it does not matter where you learned the information (One should try my surgical skills: I tie a mean Stitch).

I have long been an advocate of solely issuing Patent Rights in a Dollar evaluation, all in order that there be a limitation of the Windfall Gain of Drug development. This means there would be a set Royalty per Drug unit, and any Drug supplier could produce the Drug with the payment of the set Royalty to the Developers. There is also a lot of Hipe today about the FDA lack of funding to find contaminated Foods. Spot-Testing of Drugs should cost a tenth the cost of Food testing, simply order local Pharmacists to send every 1000th unit of Drug to the FDA to examine for purity. Sub-contract Labs could easily handle the Traffic to be examined, and the Results sent forward. Such Procedures would cut Drug prices in this Country, by my estimate almost 50%.

I will get requests to answer how easier Food testing can be accomplished. The nature of bacterial and Virus cultures makes it almost impossible to adequately test for Food contamination. The first tomato past the One tested for contamination may be the exact Tomato which delivers the culture contaminating Processing equipment for later Produce. Testing every item of Produce remains un-accomplishable, because of the Mass of Produce to be checked, and due to the fact that the Testing itself will often destroy the Food value of the Product. Food Poisoning has been with Us since the Beginning, and will still be existent when We are all Dust. The real Problem here lies in the fact that about 20% of the human population is highly Sensitive to Food Poisoning, while the Rest of Us simply curse, and go to the bathroom. Medical Research should be directed to finding a Universal Anti-body serum inoculating against Food Poisoning. lgl