Megan McArdle’s May 9 column (“There’s a cost in making drugs more affordable here”) is a clipping from big drug company’s PR release about the money that private industry puts into drug research, and it is incorrect.
It ignores the billions invested by the government-funded research in the same cures that she attributes to private money. “Every one of the 210 new drugs approved by the FDA between 2010 and 2016 began life in NIH-funded labs, representing grant funding totaling more than $100 billion,” a 2018 report by researchers at Bentley University reveals.
This is just one paragraph over several pages in the current May 2019 AARP bulletin cover story on drug costs in this country. I would suggest anyone wanting a truer picture read this first. This column by McArdle is just the type of opinion column writing that has given the news industry a black eye for biased reporting. If she cannot improve on it I would suggest you not use her again.
Charles Best
Duvall
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
