[bumby]

That's a potential real problem, but the concern should be across the board (i.e., how do we know other countries aren't funding me-too drugs) so it doesn't really help illuminate any disparity between countries (which is the context of this discussion).

I'm not trying to be dismissive, I just don't know how it's germane to the discussion unless we view all the other data through the same lens. The data I linked is per country in absolute and per capita basis that tries to put it in unbiased terms.

Are you claiming the US is disproportionately funding non-useful research? If so, how do we measure "useful" research funding?

[jason0597]

I do not know how to objectively measure useful research funding. However, this discussion reminded me of a graph I saw on the wtfhappenedin1971.com site [1]. It's not direct measurement of R&D development, but it sure as hell doesn't paint a good picture for all the spending that's going on. I wouldn't be surprised if a similar allocation of funds was happening in medical R&D as well.

[1] https://wtfhappenedin1971home.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/ey...

[bumby]

Yes, I'm familiar with that graph. There's a similar one for college tuition in the U.S.; interesting that both are industries where costs have been growing at more than GDP year over year.

However, the point between comparing countries still holds. If you use older data, you'll see that the U.S. had even more disproportionate R&D funding