It's the flipside of the factory farm and overprescriptio fiascos. Yes, those are bad, but we haven't discovered new types of antibiotics for decades... and many diseases get far less attention, because of patents and silos. Even researchers working as a result of public funding are snapped up by big pharma once they make a discovery which then acts as a parasite on the public money.
Science progresses when anyone, anywhere, can contribute. Same with open source. It is the reason Wikipedia is larger than and just as accurate as Brittanica or any other encyclopedia. It is the reason Android runs on so many phones, and Linux runs on toasters. It has given us everything from WebKit to Wordpress and created a massive amount of solutions for the LONG TAIL instead of just boutique drugs.
It took 30 years to discover a new antbiotic type:
http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=93
It's the flipside of the factory farm and overprescriptio fiascos. Yes, those are bad, but we haven't discovered new types of antibiotics for decades... and many diseases get far less attention, because of patents and silos. Even researchers working as a result of public funding are snapped up by big pharma once they make a discovery which then acts as a parasite on the public money.
Science progresses when anyone, anywhere, can contribute. Same with open source. It is the reason Wikipedia is larger than and just as accurate as Brittanica or any other encyclopedia. It is the reason Android runs on so many phones, and Linux runs on toasters. It has given us everything from WebKit to Wordpress and created a massive amount of solutions for the LONG TAIL instead of just boutique drugs.
It took 30 years to discover a new antbiotic type:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/14/first-new-anti...
More people studying eg human bacteria in the nose will find cures if they are unencumbered:
http://www.nature.com/news/the-nose-knows-how-to-kill-mrsa-1...
We need patentleft! All that phage therapy etc. shouldn't be controlled the way monsanto controls agriculture now.