Verily I say unto thee, that Roy Schestowitz spake thusly:
> Biochemist calls for 'open-source' R&D revolution
[quote]
Edwards believes the only way to get more medicines to patients is for
industry and academia to work together – and to post all their findings
free on the Internet.
...
Developing a new drug is difficult because scientists still have a
relatively poor knowledge of human biology, says Edwards.
But, he argues, researchers can save time and money and have a better
chance of creating new drugs if they share expertise and results.
...
"By sharing, you can reduce the risk," Edwards says.
...
That so-called "big pharma" has funnelled money into the consortium,
even during a recession, shows how seriously it is considering the open
access philosophy, says Roderick McInnes, scientific director of the
Institute of Genetics at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research,
which has funded the Structural Genomics Consortium from the beginning.
[/quote]
http://www.thestar.com/article/613662
This is an important step in the fight against one aspect of the disease
of Intellectual Monopoly. The pharmaceutical industry has long ceased to
be about saving lives, and became a grotesque money-making machine which
profited by others' suffering, simply to "protect" knowledge which might
otherwise save lives, if it weren't being used for extortion.
Knowledge is not property, and should never have been deemed as such.
The current economic crisis may be the opportunity we need, to enlighten
the Intellectual Monopolists that exclusive access to academic knowledge
is not only profoundly immoral, but counter-productive too.
--
K.
http://slated.org
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| "The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which
| the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf
| denounces him for the same act, as the destroyer of liberty.
| Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of
| the word liberty; and precisely the same difference prevails today
| among human creatures." ~ Abraham Lincoln
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Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.25.11-60.fc8
22:08:27 up 155 days, 4:51, 4 users, load average: 0.00, 0.02, 0.00
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