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Author: Fred Roeder

How liability lawsuits drive up drug prices, stifle innovation, and harm patients

A single drug can cost up to 2 million dollars per treatment. In the light of COVID-19, patient groups and activists have been using the crisis of the moment to call for capping drug and vaccine prices and cracking down on barriers to access for patients. In developing countries, large parts of drug prices are caused by tariffs, taxes, and other regulatory barriers. The United States, on the other hand, has the highest per-capita drug expenditure and drug prices in the world.

Bringing a drug to the US market is usually critical for a company to recoup the roughly 2 billion dollars of development costs per successfully launched medicine. At the same time, the country’s unique legal liability and injury system (called tort law) leads to higher drug prices without necessarily creating benefits for patients. Once a drug has passed the rigorous approval process demonstrating safety and efficacy to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), it is still subject to various liability laws at the state level.

In the last two decades, Pfizer set aside a whopping 21 billion dollars for settlements following tort lawsuits against the diet drug Fen-Phen. Those who were harmed by the drug were able to seek legal recourse. That said, thousands and thousands of people who were not harmed by the drug were also able to seek compensation. So much so that it is assumed that at least 70% of the payouts went to claimants who weren’t harmed at all by the drug.

Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay 8 billion dollars to one patient for side effects caused by the antipsychotic drug Risperdal. These are just a few examples of a plethora of multi-billion-dollar payments drug companies have been compelled to make after being dragged to court, despite them being deemed safe by the FDA.

Patient advocates who are passionate about lowering drug prices in the USA should take a serious look at liability laws and how their misuse inflates prices. Abolishing liability beyond FDA requirements could reduce drug prices in the United States by 12 to 120 billion dollars a year and therefore give many more patients access to medicines. 

In 2019, US patients spent a total of $360 billion on prescription drugs. Between 3 and 30% of this amount could be freed up for other treatments or price cuts if liability rules for FDA-approved drugs would be reformed. This change might seem radical, but it is what Congress has approved for FDA-approved medical devices. A similar preemption was extended to vaccines in the late 1980s via the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

Another impact of lawsuits following product withdrawals of FDA-approved drugs is that they negatively affect new investments in development. Pfizer’s settlement for Fen-Phen alone could have been used to bring 10-15 new innovative and life-saving drugs to patients.

Rather than using these financial resources for more research and development, or to lower drug prices, pharmaceutical manufacturers have to fight law firms who enrich themselves by abusing the US tort system. Tort law on top of FDA regulation is not just stifling innovation, but also an expensive way to compensate for the harm caused to patients. Paul H. Rubin suggests that the costs of settlement for the legal process account for half of the total settlement fees. Reducing this burden could increase the speed of new drugs being developed and reduce their price. Critics of tort reform will say that changing liability rules will endanger patients, but that’s far from the truth. A 2007 study shows that tort law reform in some states led to a total of 24,000 fewer deaths due to price reductions and the arrival of new innovative drugs. That’s something to keep in mind.

As long as we keep existing tort law on top of the FDA approval framework, consumers are being de facto forced to pay a massive markup on drugs in order to get insured against potential side effects. This is a very expensive and inefficient way of insuring patients against harm. 

A smarter way of designing such a compensation scheme is to either expand the vaccine compensation scheme to pharmaceuticals or to allow consumers to personally purchase insurance against such damages. This could, for instance, be supplementary insurance on top of the patient’s existing health insurance plans. Such a system would allow patients who opt-in much lower fees than the existing mandatory tort law system.

Exempting drugs from state tort law would be an easy step to reduce drug prices without putting patients under more risk. American patients would save billions a year and be able to access more treatments than they can currently. This will lead to a net benefit for patients and the health of the nation. Why not give it a try?

Es de Latino

La sostenibilidad y la innovación deberían ir de la mano en la UE

En las últimas dos décadas, Europa ha decidido seguir su propio camino en las políticas agrícolas. Si bien tanto América del Norte como América del Sur, y también Japón se han movido a una agricultura moderna aún más impulsada por la tecnología, Europa ha retrocedido y sigue prohibiendo cada vez más avances y métodos científicamente probados en la agricultura. En conversaciones comerciales recientes, los principales diplomáticos estadounidenses se han burlado repetidamente del marco regulatorio en la UE como anacrónico.

«Debemos eliminar las restricciones a la adopción de nuevos enfoques y tecnologías innovadores, incluidas restricciones regulatorias excesivamente onerosas e innecesarias, y vamos a decir la verdad a nuestros ciudadanos sobre tecnología, productividad y seguridad».

Esas fueron las palabras del Secretario de Agricultura de los Estados Unidos, Sonny Perdue en un artículo de opinión publicado en Euractiv en febrero. De manera un poco menos diplomática, el embajador de Estados Unidos en el Reino Unido, Woody Wilson, acuñó el enfoque de la UE «Museo de la Agricultura». en un artículo de opinión para The Telegraph solo este marzo.

Tanto Perdue como Wilson sostienen que las restricciones de la Unión Europea a la tecnología agrícola moderna no son sostenibles y limitan severamente los futuros acuerdos comerciales.

Juzgar si son correctos o no no está relacionado con cuánto amas u odias a los Estados Unidos, sino cuánto amas u odias la estabilidad de los precios de los alimentos. Nosotros, los europeos, podemos juzgar esto nosotros mismos.

Vamos a evaluar la situación tal como es. Tanto la agricultura convencional como la orgánica se ocupan de las plagas de las que deben deshacerse para no poner en peligro la seguridad alimentaria y la estabilidad de precios para los consumidores. Ambos requieren productos químicos como parte de sus herramientas de protección de cultivos.

Como muestra África, las plagas de langostas pueden ser devastadoras para la seguridad alimentaria, y la ciencia climática nos permite detectar que ciertas plagas vendrán de lugares distantes a nuestras costas más temprano que tarde, lo que hace que los insecticidas sean necesarios. Para evitar hongos y micotoxinas mortales, utilizamos fungicidas.

Políticamente, estas herramientas de protección de cultivos químicos no son populares, ya que una cantidad cada vez mayor de ambientalistas empuja a los políticos a prohibirlas. Esto ha dejado el espectro político de izquierda vs. derecha y se distribuye equitativamente en ambos lados.

Desafortunadamente, si las autoridades de seguridad alimentaria nacionales e internacionales han demostrado que estos productos químicos son seguros o no, en el contexto de la política moderna posterior a la verdad, es muy poco.

Lo que parece importar es que las herramientas modernas de protección de cultivos están etiquetadas como insostenibles. Sin embargo, la sostenibilidad no está suficientemente definida y, por lo tanto, ha servido como una excusa para envalentonar los conceptos erróneos existentes sobre la agricultura.

En todo caso, la sostenibilidad debe basarse en una agricultura moderna e innovadora que satisfaga las necesidades del medio ambiente, la seguridad alimentaria, la seguridad alimentaria y los precios competitivos para los consumidores. Esas herramientas están disponibles para nosotros hoy.

A través de la ingeniería genética, los científicos han encontrado una manera de reducir el uso de productos tradicionales de protección de cultivos, al tiempo que aumentan el rendimiento de los cultivos. Sin embargo, una vez más, una sospecha política hacia la innovación agro-tecnológica impide el camino a seguir, en este caso a través de la directiva de OGM de 2001, que prácticamente prohíbe toda la ingeniería genética con el propósito de los cultivos.

El cambio climático altera la forma en que producimos alimentos, lo queramos o no. Las enfermedades raras y no tan raras nos obligan a adaptar nuestro suministro de alimentos a los consumidores que lo necesitan. Las modificaciones genéticas específicas nos permiten superar mutaciones aleatorias del pasado y desarrollar cambios precisos en el campo de los alimentos.

Estados Unidos, junto con Israel, Japón, Argentina y Brasil, están liderando el mundo con reglas permisivas para la edición de genes. Esta nueva tecnología puede mejorar la esperanza de vida, la seguridad alimentaria y los precios de los alimentos para todos los consumidores. Las reglas de la UE, en comparación, tienen 20 años y no están enraizadas en la ciencia, ya que una cantidad cada vez mayor de científicos ahora explicando.

¿Los estadounidenses quieren competir con los agricultores europeos y vender cantidades crecientes de alimentos en este continente?

Esto no solo es obviamente el caso, sino que también es mutuo. Si invertimos tanto tiempo como lo hacemos en demonizar los productos estadounidenses aquí para promover los productos europeos en el extranjero, entonces serían nuestros agricultores expandiéndose masivamente en el mercado estadounidense con productos superiores. En el escenario, los consumidores mantienen sus elecciones de alimentos, y los minoristas y productores deben estar obligados a etiquetar los orígenes de los alimentos.

Sobre todo, la modificación de nuestras normas sobre nuevas tecnologías de mejoramiento genético (o edición de genes) debe hacerse en interés de los consumidores europeos más que en el de los exportadores estadounidenses. Europa debería liderar el camino hacia la innovación agrícola y dar lecciones para la innovación, no tomarlas de los Estados Unidos. En interés de los consumidores europeos, debemos permitir la innovación y luego ser un líder mundial en ello.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

Euractiv

Sustainability and innovation should go hand in hand in the EU

In the last two decades, Europe has decided to go its own way in agricultural policies. While both North and South America, and also Japan have moved to even more technology-driven modern agriculture, Europe has gone backwards and keeps banning more and more scientifically proven advances and methods in agriculture. In recent trade talks, top American diplomats have repeatedly mocked the regulatory framework in the EU as anachronistic.

“We must remove constraints to the adoption of innovative new approaches and technologies, including overly burdensome and unnecessary regulatory restrictions, and will to speak truth to our citizens about technology, productivity and safety.”

Those were the words of U.S Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue in an op-ed published on Euractiv in February. In a slightly less diplomatic fashion, the U.S ambassador to the United Kingdom, Woody Wilson, coined the EU’s approach “Museum of Agriculture” in an op-ed for The Telegraph just this March.

Both Perdue and Wilson argue that the European Union’s restrictions on modern agricultural technology are not sustainable, and severely limit future trade deals.

To judge whether they are correct or not is not related to how much you love or hate the United States, but how much you love or hate food price stability. We Europeans can be the judge of this ourselves.

Let’s assess the situation as it is. Both conventional and organic agriculture deal with pests they need to get rid of in order not to jeopardise food security and price stability for consumers. Both require chemicals as part of their crop protection tools.

As Africa shows, locust plagues can be devastating for food security, and climate science enables us to detect that certain pests will come from distant places to our shores sooner than later, making insecticides necessary. In order to avoid fungus and deadly mycotoxins, we use fungicides.

Politically, these chemical crop protection tools are not popular, as increasing amounts of environmentalists push politicians to ban them. This has left the political spectrum of left vs. right and is equally distributed on both sides.

Unfortunately, whether or not these chemicals have been shown to be safe by national and international food safety authorities matters – in the context of modern post-truth politics – very little.

What does seem to matter is that modern crop protection tools are labelled as being unsustainable. However, sustainability is insufficiently defined, and has thus served as an excuse to embolden existing misconceptions about agriculture.

If anything, sustainability should be based on modern and innovative agriculture that caters to the need of the environment, food safety, food security, and competitive prices for consumers. Those tools are available to us today.

Through genetic engineering, scientists have found a way to reduce the use of traditional crop protection products, while increasing crop yield. Yet once again, a political suspicion towards agro-tech innovation bars the way forward, in this case through the 2001 GMO directive, which practically bans all genetic engineering for the purpose of crops.

Climate change alters the way we produce food whether we want it or not. Rare and not so rare diseases make it necessary for us to adapt our food supply to consumers who need it. Specific genetic modifications allow us to overcome random mutations of the past, and develop precise changes in the field of food.

The United States, together with Israel, Japan, Argentina, and Brazil, are leading the world with permissive rules for gene-editing. This novel technology can improve life expectancy, food security, and food prices for all consumers. The EU’s rules, by comparison, are 20 years old and not rooted in science, as an increasing amount of scientists are now explaining.

Do the Americans want to compete with European farmers and sell increasing amounts of food on this continent?

This is not only obviously the case, but it is also mutual. If we invested as much time as we do on demonising American products here into promoting European products abroad, then it would be our farmers massively expanding into the American market with superior produce. In the scenario, consumers keep their choices of food, and retailers and producers need to be required to label the origins of food.

Most of all, altering our rules on new breeding technologies (or gene editing) ought to be done in the interest of European consumers more than in those of American exporters. Europe should lead the way on agricultural innovation and give lessons for innovation, not take them from the United States. In the interests of European consumers, we should allow for innovation, and then be a global leader in it.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

Capx logo

The folly of opposing patents on a Covid vaccine

Doctors Without Borders does incredible work in the interest of patients around the globe. It has an exemplary track record of bringing doctors to the front lines of combat zones, famines, and pandemics — helping those patients that are left alone and victims of large crises.

During the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, MSF (to use its French acronym) was the leading organisation fighting for patients — far more so than the World Health Organization, which is bureaucratic and has slow response times. For that and its previous 48 years of service, it needs to be applauded.

However, its current opposition to patents on drugs treating Covid-19 misunderstands the importance of intellectual property rights for medical innovation.

MSF is also running a campaign on access to medicines which distorts the realities of the drug market, while calling for solutions that would harm scientific innovation. The “Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines” wants to increase the availability of medicines in developing nations by addressing drug pricing and intellectual property rights. In the eyes of MSF, producers and researchers are enriching themselves off the backs of those who can least afford it.

What MSF gets wrong is that intellectual property rights and patents do not hinder innovation but actually enable medical progress.

Dozens of pharmaceutical companies have not only started searching for a vaccine against Covid-19 but have also thrown a lot of resources into getting millions of tests produced, looking at what existing drugs might be able to treat the disease, and donating money and materials to health systems across the world.

In fact, the philanthropic efforts of pharmaceutical companies are impressively underreported. By any standard, these companies are offering charitable support, including to organisations working with patients on the ground. However, Doctors Without Borders has said that it will not accept in-kind donations of drugs from pharmaceutical companies, but instead purchase them at market prices. Donors to MSF would probably be stunned by the idea that their donations are spent on drugs that MSF could have got for free.

While the industry also cares about access a lot, dysfunctional health systems and infrastructure are often the barrier between a patient and a treatment or vaccine. We need to realise that charitable acts are only possible if profits are also encouraged. Pharmaceutical companies develop drugs, protect their inventions and make profits. If you cut out patent rights from the equation, the incentive to innovate disappears, and life-saving medicines that cost billions to develop will stay off the market.

Doctors without Borders calls for preventing drug profiteering on the novel coronavirus, while ignoring the significant donations being made to help stop this virus. In fact, most efforts to combat the disease are public-private partnerships, much like the fight against Ebola was.

Remember too that stopping companies making a profit from drugs both eliminates incentives and ignores both the risks and the costs of working on a new drug. Who are we to tell lab workers to come into work every day for free, when there are risks associated with going to work and interacting with fellow employees?

The idea of so-called compulsory licenses, which de facto takes a patent away from a manufacturer in one country and gives it to another, might even delay the introduction of a Covid-19 vaccine even more. It takes know how and supply chains to manufacture and deliver a working vaccine. It is questionable whether a vaccine produced under compulsory licensing would actually be less expensive than the original one.

Much can be said about drug manufacturing and access to essential medicines. But a proper debate needs to be held on the basis of certain basic facts. Among these is that pharmaceutical companies invest vast sums of money to provide life-saving medicines, and those same companies have also taken action to help those in the most need. With Covid-19, we are facing one of the biggest public health crises ever – Innovation and medical breakthroughs are needed now more than ever. Undermining the ownership of innovations will definitely not lead to the breakthroughs that will ultimately get us out of this nightmare.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

I celebrated World IP Day but many didn’t

Last Sunday (April 26th) marked World Intellectual Property Day. While the existence of IP has allowed innovators to enjoy the rewards of their invention, more and more voices speak up against patents and IP in general. So while I celebrated World IP Day many didn’t even want to show up to the party.

The current COVID-19 crises triggers many voices that ask to ban all patents of COVID-19 related tests, drugs, and vaccines. I stumbled ac ross some very wrong statements and want to highlight these and explain what their authors got wrong.

Michael Barker for instance writes:

Flowing from the relentless drive for super-profits, we can also understand the process by which big pharma makes decisions on the type of drugs they will prioritise for mass production. Medicines that can be sold to wealthy consumers in developed countries, are fast-tracked, while drugs and treatments that might benefit the poorest billions simply fall by the wayside. Human life is secondary to the pursuit of profits.

The author might not know that depending on the country you live in and the insurance you have, drug prices can vary enormously, not because of the decisions of the manufacturer, but because of the local reimbursement models. However, producers also sell at different initial costs in developing countries. The British company GlaxoSmithKline usually caps their drug prices in emerging markets at 25% of the price they ask for in developed countries. In many cases the price is way below the 25% cap. The same company offers their HIV/AIDS treatment at merely variable cost in South Africa. Since 2001 the Swiss company Novartis supplies the fixed-dose artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) without profit to public-sector buyers. Over 850 million antimalarial treatments have been delivered to patients in more than 60 malaria-endemic countries. American biotechnology company Gilead has an access partnership campaign that licenses out their drugs to local partners in low- and middle-income countries, selling drugs at cost.   

Another group that sometimes totally misunderstands the pharmaceutical research industry is the well-respected NGO Doctors without Borders (MSF). While I am a personal fan of their work on the front lines of health conflicts, I wholeheartedly disagree with their understanding of patents and profits.

MSF states:

The international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) today called for no patents or profiteering on drugs, tests, or vaccines used for the COVID-19 pandemic, and for governments to prepare to suspend and override patents and take other measures, such as price controls, to ensure availability, reduce prices and save more lives.

Price controls will actually lead to shortages – We have seen this in the past and see this in the current COVID-19 crisis. Whenever a government limits the price of a good, its supply tends to go down. To controlling prices and at the same time ensuring availability is just and oxymoron. If MSF genuinely wants to save more lives (which I believe), they should encourage flexible prices and patent-protection – At the same time they might want to reconsider their own policy of not accepting in kind donations of the pharmaceutical industry…

MSF campaigners raise a point in favour of eliminating private property protection, saying that the ownership hasn’t even been established through private funds. Since manufacturers receive public grants for their work, their results should also be public ownership. While it is true that one in three Euros spent on pharmaceutical research is public money, it is also true that this public expenditure is offset by the taxes paid. The industry, employees, and customers pay directly a much higher amount of taxes than is received subsidies. Total R&D expenditure in the UK in 2015 was 4.1bn GBP (of which roughly 1.2 GBP are public funds) and direct tax contribution was 300% higher at 3.7. Billion.

1828 uk logo

A roadmap for the NHS: lessons from Germany

In both Germany and the United Kingdom, around 0.18 per cent of the total population has recently tested positive for coronavirus. While the spread of the pandemic is roughly equal in these countries, the fatality rate is 420 per cent higher for patients treated by the NHS compared with those treated in Germany. This is because Germany’s hospitals are better placed to be resilient in times of crisis, thanks to the private and competitive aspects of the country’s healthcare system.

Germany’s decentralised and private laboratory network had already tested over two per cent of its population when the UK’s figure still stood at a meagre 0.7%. Britain’s centralised testing system, and its failure to scale up Covid-19 tests, might explain part of this mortality gap. One could assume that only very severe cases are being tested by the NHS and, as such, the fatality rate of this more concentrated group is higher.

Even if you make very generous adjustments to the figures and assume that Britain’s fatality rate would remain unchanged even if the NHS tested as many people as the German system, the UK would still have a 49 per cent higher death rate.

Not only are the NHS’s testing facilities incapable of dealing with black swan events, the entire healthcare system simply doesn’t have sufficient resilience to minimise the harm caused to patients by a virus such as Covid-19.

Conversely, Germany’s mainly private and non-profit hospital system leads the way in Europe when it comes to successfully facing this wave of patients. In early March, hospitals had already freed up beds in intensive care by pushing back elective surgeries, and the total capacity of ICU beds was ramped up 40 per cent within a month. Germany’s hospitals now have a total of 40,000 ICU beds and 30,000 beds with respiration units.

And all of this was achieved while still ensuring the provision of critical services such as cancer care and screening, which is something that the NHS is struggling to do – a problem that may cause more harm than Covid-19.

Thanks to the recent increase, Germany has now 48 ICU beds per 100,000 inhabitants, which is more than seven times the capacity the UK currently has. This month, the NHS published the occupancy rate of critical care beds in February, which showed over 80 per cent of those were in use. And while Germany was deploying a new public database showing critical care capacity per hospital, which is updated at least once a day, the NHS paused the publication of many of its own statistics, and those that are released are at least a month old.

What’s more, Germany’s new online ICU capacity register was built overnight, a tool that provides patients and doctors with invaluable guidance. One map, for example, shows that in Bavaria, which is the state worst-hit by Covid-19, just 16.1 per cent of ICU beds are occupied by patients with coronavirus. It also shows the available number of empty ICU beds. Bavaria still has 37 per cent of all its ICU beds empty and can, therefore, comfortably treat three times more Covid-19 patients than now.

This successful approach has taken place within a system where the government owns less than 30 per cent of all hospitals. Germany’s universal healthcare system embraces competition and private ownership of hospitals and outpatient services. So while the social insurance system covers 90 per cent of the population, the provision of care is mainly carried out by private for-profit hospitals or charities. 

Simply put, private hospitals and competition lead to much more efficient structures, and Germany’s decentralised healthcare system, which allowed for a speedy mitigation strategy, is now showing its value by saving thousands of lives. Indeed, Germany is not only weathering this storm better than the NHS but it is even able to fly in and treat hundreds of patients from Italy, France and Spain.

British policymakers will need to show courage in the coming months and be honest about the failings of the UK’s healthcare system during this crisis. There are two crucial lessons that will need to be learned in order to prevent, or at least mitigate, another lacklustre response in the future.

The first is that introducing more market mechanisms in the NHS would not mean that patients were denied care – you can have universal healthcare in a social insurance model too. And the second is that having more private hospitals does not necessarily lead to fewer hospital beds, but a better allocation of skills and resources. Indeed, it allowed Germany to scale up its ICU capacity, as well as keeping services such as cancer treatments and screenings open in different locations.

The centralised nature of NHS does not allow for any part of the chain to fail. Unfortunately, failure is in our nature and less centralised systems are therefore necessary in order to achieve resilience and adaptability in times of urgent need.

We should make the UK fit for the next nasty virus by decentralising testing and allowing for more private sector involvement in our healthcare system. It’s high time we faced the facts about the NHS and stopped ignoring success stories from around the world.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

genetic literacy project

What comic book super heroes and villains tell us about plant and human gene editing – and the coronavirus

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Humanity is currently facing a huge challenge imposed by the coronavirus. Borders are being shut down, planes grounded, and factories closed. At the same time, scientists and public health professionals are working on tests, treatments, and vaccines to soon provide a medical response. Coping with corona might be one of the largest tests humans have faced in the past decades but it won’t be the last virus we need to defeat. It is time to embrace bioscience and allow more research and applications of genetic alteration methods.

For the layman, all this technobabble about mutagenesis and genetic engineering is difficult to comprehend and it took me personally a good amount of reading to start grasping what different methods exist and how these can massively improve our quality of life.

Let’s first look at the four most common ways to alter the genes of a plant or animal:

  • Dr. Xavier – Mutations per se just happen regularly in nature – This is how some amino acids ended up being humans a billion years later. Biological evolution can only happen thanks to mutations. Mutations in nature happen randomly or are caused by exogenous factors such as radiation (e.g. sun). For the comic book readers among us, X-men have mutations that (in most cases) occurred randomly.
legion professor xavier x
  • The Hulk – Mutation through exposure (mutagens): One of the most common ways to manipulate seeds is exposing them to radiation and hoping for positive mutations (e.g. higher pest resistance). This method is very common since the 1950s and a very inaccurate shotgun approach aiming to make crops more resistant or palatable. It requires thousands of attempts to get a positive result. This method is widely used and legal in nearly every country. In our comic book universe, the Hulk is a good example of mutations caused by radiation.
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  • Spiderman – Genetically Modified Organisms (transgenic GMO): This often-feared procedure of creating GMOs is based on inserting the genes of one species into the genes of another. In most cases, GMO crops have been injected with a protein of another plant or bacteria that makes the crop grow faster or be more resistant towards certain diseases. Other examples can be seen in crossing salmon with tilapia fish which makes the salmon grow twice as fast. Spiderman being bitten by a spider and suddenly being able to climb skyscrapers due to his enhanced spider-human (transgenic) DNA is an example from the comicverse.
  • GATTACA/Wrath of Khan – Gene Editing (the scissors): The latest and most precise way of altering an organism’s genes is so-called Gene Editing. In contrast to traditional GMOs, genes are not being implanted from another organism but changed within the organism due to a precise method of either deactivating certain genes or adding them.
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This can be even done in grown humans that are alive, which is a blessing for everyone who suffers from genetic disorders. We are able to “repair” genes in live organisms. Gene editing is also thousands of times more accurate than just bombarding seeds with radiation. Some applied examples are deactivating the gene responsible for generating gluten in wheat: The result is gluten-free wheat. There are several methods that achieve this. One of the most popular ones these days is the so-called CRISPR Cas-9. These ‘scissors’ are usually reprogrammed bacteria that transmit the new gene information or deactivate defunct or unwanted genes. Many science fiction novels and movies show a future in which we can deactivate genetic defects and cure humans from terrible diseases. Some examples of stories in which CRISPR-like techniques have been used are movies such as GATTACA, Star Trek’s Wrath of Khan, or the Expanse series in which gene editing plays a crucial role in growing crops in space.Related article:  Viewpoint: How Germany’s anti-GMO, pro-organic politics benefit US ag companies

What does this have to do with the Coronavirus?

Synthetic biologists have started using CRISPR to synthetically create parts of the coronavirus in an attempt to launch a vaccine against this lung disease and be able to mass-produce it very quickly. In combination with computer simulations and artificial intelligence, the best design for such a vaccine is calculated on a computer and then synthetically created. This speeds up vaccine development and cuts it from years to merely months. Regulators and approval bodies have shown that in times of crisis they can also rapidly approve new testing and vaccination procedures which usually require years of back and forth with agencies such as the FDA?

CRISPR also allows the ‘search’ for specific genes, also genes of a virus. This helped researchers to build fast and simple testing procedures to test patients for corona.

In the long term, gene editing might allow us to increase the immunity of humans by altering our genes and making us more resistant to viruses and bacteria.

This won’t be the last crisis

While the coronavirus seems to really test our modern society, we also need to be aware that this won’t be the last pathogen that has the potential to kill millions. If we are unlucky, corona might mutate quickly and become harder to fight. The next dangerous virus, fungus, or bacteria is probably around the corner. Hence we need to embrace the latest inventions of biotechnology and not block genetic research and the deployment of its findings.

Right now a lot of red tape and even outright bans are standing between lifesaving innovations such as CRISPR and patients around the world. We need to rethink our hostility towards genetic engineering and embrace it. To be frank: We are in a constant struggle to fight newly occurring diseases and need to be able to deploy state of the art human answers to this.

Fred Roeder is a Health Economist from Germany and has worked in healthcare reform in North America, Europe, and several former Soviet Republics. One of his passions is to analyze how disruptive industries and technologies allow consumers more choice at a lower cost. Follow him on Twitter @FredCyrusRoeder

A version of this article was originally published at Consumer Choice Center and has been republished here with permission. The center can be found on Twitter @ConsumerChoiceC

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

The Spectator

Five measures that could prevent future lockdowns

That the World Health Organisation hasn’t exactly shone in the coronavirus crisis is now well-documented. It should remind us of the dangers of following one centrally-guided approach to tackling the disease. Thankfully, given how even experts have been unsure about how to respond to this enormous challenge, there was no unified EU response to Covid-19. Instead, European countries have been dealing with the virus using trial and error.

As a result, looking at the responses of European and Asian countries, we can now distinguish five important things that seem to have worked to prevent the need for a strict, economically devastating lockdown.

Read more here

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

Food Chain

The value of packaging design goes beyond pretty pictures

The value of packaging design goes beyond pretty pictures says Fred Roeder

When people talk about the importance of design, people will often point to iconic logos and branding that we now take for granted, whether it’s the Coca Cola motif, Mr Pringles crisps or Jack Daniels bottles.

But the importance of design isn’t just in the design itself, but in the intellectual property behind the design and its intrinsic value to brand holders and consumers. Design cues provide information and knowledge around the products consumers buy and help to build confidence. Removing design elements simply limits an individual’s ability to make informed decisions about what they are buying.

Late last year, the outgoing UK Chief Medical Officer, Dame Sally Davies, called on the government to threaten the food industry with ‘cigarette style’ plain packaging for sweets and chocolates if they failed to meet sugar reduction targets. Dame Sally called the for the sugar tax programme – already in place for soft drinks – to be extended to cereals, yogurts and cakes if targets are not met by 2021, and applied to calorie-rich foods by 2024.

Creative solutions

Dame Sally’s parting shot at the food, drink and retailing industry comes hot on the heels of the UK’s Food Ethics Council which also called for an outright ban on cartoon mascots on junk food, including fizzy drinks, crisps, cereals and biscuits, in a bid to curb obesity and diseases like diabetes

No one is denying that a there’s a sensible debate to be had around responsible consumption, but unproven laws are not the solution. Rather than scaring people into changing their behaviour or punishing their pockets through ‘sin taxes’ and brand censorship, legislators need to be more creative when it comes to promoting good health.

While it’s not yet government policy in the UK, it soon could be and it will be interesting to see if Chris Whitty, Dame Sally’s replacement, picks up the cudgel and continues to beat food and drink manufacturers, retailers and consumers into submission.

Lawmakers often take their lead from public health bodies like the Food Ethics Council and supranational organisations 13like the World Health Organisation, who just love to wield the ban hammer in the name of protecting public health.

It’s happening already with Ireland’s Public Health (Alcohol) Bill, which became law in October 2018, regulating advertising and promotion, insisting on mandatory cancer warnings, and banning alcohol branding from sports stadiums.

Restricting marketing and communications in certain product categories and, in some cases, banning their availability altogether, will only serve to stifle innovation and violate consumer rights.

You only have to go back 100 years to the US bringing in the Volstead Act, which prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, to know that banning something simply drives demand underground, fuelling criminality.

Freedom of choice

Unbranded goods provide a boon for organised crime gangs as the labels, packaging and containers are much easier to fake. Spurred on by the promise of enormous profits, the trade in unregulated illegal products represents a tempting proposition for counterfeiters, with huge costs to governments and the public alike. Therefore, the total damage to businesses affected is likely to be higher. Brand censorship will almost certainly lead to losses in the creative industries, including design and advertising services, which are heavily reliant on FMCG contracts.

Brand Finance estimates that the potential value loss to businesses worldwide would be $430.8bn if tobacco-style plain packaging were extended to the beverage industry. This refers to the loss of value derived specifically from brands and does not account for further potential losses resulting from changes in price and volume of the products sold, or illegal trade.

Compounding the issue is a complete lack of analysis-based dialogue between brand owners, consumers and regulators. IP laws and frameworks are positive examples of these groups working together to protect and enforce the interests of rights holders, whilst at the same time allowing consumers the freedom to make their own choices. Despite these efforts, the infringement of IP rights remains a significant problem. According to a 2019 OECD – EUIPO report, the total volume of trade in fakes was estimated at $509bn, or 3.3 per cent of global trade (up from 2.5 per cent in 2013).

The way forward

No brand has a God-given right to exist or survive. But the threat of restrictive business regulation and illegal trade will only serve to hasten their demise by undermining intellectual property rights and weakening their inherent value.

The Food Ethics Council and Public Health England are right to call for a debate on how we can make the country healthier, but the negative impact of limiting brands could wreak havoc in the packaging and creative industries, causing a major headache for big retailers, with no conclusive evidence that the policy will achieve the desired health objectives.

That is why closer collaboration and co-operation between policymakers and industry participants, and education over legislation, provides the best way forward. Instead of health warnings and brand censorship, we should use incentives and encouragement to change consumer behaviour.

Fred Roeder is the Managing Director of the Consumer Choice Center, an independent non-profit organisation, which promotes ‘consumer choice’ among different products, innovations and price classes. The Consumer Choice Center supports lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science and consumer choice. The CCC believes regulators on local, national and supranational levels keep regulating more and more areas of consumers’ lives. This leads to less consumer choice and makes products more expensive.

Originally published here.

The Consumer Choice Center is the consumer advocacy group supporting lifestyle freedom, innovation, privacy, science, and consumer choice. The main policy areas we focus on are digital, mobility, lifestyle & consumer goods, and health & science.

The CCC represents consumers in over 100 countries across the globe. We closely monitor regulatory trends in Ottawa, Washington, Brussels, Geneva and other hotspots of regulation and inform and activate consumers to fight for #ConsumerChoice. Learn more at consumerchoicecenter.org

Six Medical Breaktroughs

6 Amazing Medical Breakthroughs we should be thankful for

Thanks to continuous innovation in medical sciences and biotechnology we have seen amazing breakthroughs in medical technology and pharmaceuticals in the past two decades. These breakthroughs would not have been possible without incentives for inventors and investors. We can still only cure or treat 5% of all known diseases. Reducing incentives for innovation and intellectual property rights would risk finding cures for the remaining 95%.

This is a list of just six innovations of the last two decades that dramatically improve the lives of millions of people.

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