Again, if you are someone who can barely afford gas and hear about this... you don't care about strict principles, you just want to set those in power on fire.
"What kind of IDIOT wants to WASTE valuable TAXPAYER MONEY on gila monster venom research" - man currently on a GLP-1.
Super easy!
so, you should really recalibrate being taken in by just-so stories of basic science being SUPER important.
Your rebuttal is that GLP was a highly desirable target for a long time before we stumbled upon a way to hit it... and this is evidence that the "stumbling upon a way to hit it" was not a super critical and super fortunate event...?
> How much did gila monsters buy? Maybe a year or two?
Why'd you put "a year or two?" here and not "a decade or two?" or "a century or two?" Do you have reason to believe it was a year or two away, sans Gila monster? If so, can you provide your reasoning? Per your own point, GLP was a desirable target for a long time without successful hits. We have plenty of targets that are desirable for decades without figuring out ways to hit them well enough to make a good drug.
the earlier habener results that actually got us to glp-1s via anglerfish pancreas would have been similarly derided. substitute that in if it helps.
The funny thing about that is the controversial “impact statements” that are part of grant funding are supposed to be the part where you explain how your research matters to the broad community. But it’s become so political the only thing you can feel safe writing is “we will help people learn about science” because “we’ll start an after school program for disadvantaged youth to learn about science” is too DEI for some folks.