|
Jeopardizing the U.S.' role as medical innovator
Posted by
Eric Wilson
on
October 05, 2009
The Washington Post reports this morning on the 3 American researchers - Elizabeth Blackburn (UC San Francisco), Carol Greider (Johns Hopkins), Jack Szostak (Harvard Medical) - who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine:
Three American scientists were awarded a Nobel Prize on Monday for discovering how cells protect their genetic material as they divide repeatedly throughout an organism's life, a crucial discovery with fundamental implications for research on aging, cancer and other issues.This story highlights a fact that doesn't get much attention in the current debate about our nation's health care system. The U.S. is home to the greatest medical innovations in the world and when world leaders and luminaries need care, they come to us. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded each year to researchers for their work in these fields. The Prize has highlighted "a number of important discoveries including penicillin, genetic engineering, and blood-typing."  In 34 of the last 50 years, the Nobel Prize in Medicine has been awarded to a researcher or researchers working in the United States. A great concern in the current health care reform debate is whether increased government intervention and interference in our health care system will fatally stagnate our medical innovations. |
