<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>umvi</author><text>On the other hand, I hate the general attitude of &amp;quot;don&amp;#x27;t question your doctor or do your own medical research; the doctor knows what&amp;#x27;s best&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Doctors are mortals too and can only have so much time to draw on info they crammed X years ago. Patients can quickly become more expert than GPs with regards to their own diseases, especially if they have months to research it.&lt;p&gt;Anecdotal example - my sister had a wierd skin condition in high school. My mom researched skin images and symptoms for hours and hours and concluded it was shingles. My Mom then brought her in and discussed her findings with the GP who scoffed and said she was far too young for it to be shingles. He then admonished my mom for doing her own research. Long story short and one embarrassed GP later, it was shingles.</text><parent_chain><item><author>ollie87</author><text>It is where I live, so weird visiting the US and seeing &amp;quot;ask your doctor for&amp;quot; adverts.&lt;p&gt;If I asked my GP for a specific medication they&amp;#x27;d look at me like an alien.</text></item><item><author>ptah</author><text>&amp;gt; research funding is dwarfed by marketing for example&lt;p&gt;i really believe pharma advertising should be banned</text></item><item><author>Someone1234</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m really past the whole &amp;quot;pharma need to charge high prices to fund research&amp;quot; line of argument. Aside from being factually untrue (research funding is dwarfed by marketing for example[0]), it is also arguing for a continued unhealthy relationship with pharmaceutical care.&lt;p&gt;A large amount of research is currently publicly funded. Either via public academic research or directly. When that research bears fruit it is often given away almost at-cost (or below cost when you take into account the larger research landscape) to pharma companies who then privately profit off of it.&lt;p&gt;Pharma companies are profiting off of your tax dollars and then turning around and profiting off of you too. Sure, the benefit exists, but this whole model is broken as all heck.&lt;p&gt;We should just scarp for-profit pharma development as an industry, increase public funding of research, and drug production factories should be a modest profit venture (e.g. 20% of the wholesale cost). Looking more like the generics industry today, where they produce, they don&amp;#x27;t develop.&lt;p&gt;Why do we need a private business to develop drugs at a 40%-1000%+[1] margin when the taxpayer could do it at nearly 0% margin? We&amp;#x27;ve chosen to make it this way, other countries haven&amp;#x27;t, and we see plenty of drugs developed via public institutions around the world.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bbc.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;business-28212223&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bbc.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;business-28212223&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;economictimes.indiatimes.com&amp;#x2F;industry&amp;#x2F;healthcare&amp;#x2F;biotech&amp;#x2F;pharmaceuticals&amp;#x2F;retail-margin-on-generic-drugs-may-be-as-high-as-1000-claims-study&amp;#x2F;articleshow&amp;#x2F;58252850.cms?from=mdr&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;economictimes.indiatimes.com&amp;#x2F;industry&amp;#x2F;healthcare&amp;#x2F;bio...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month</title><url>https://www.nbc15.com/content/news/Illinois-governor-signs-law-capping-insulin-costs-at-100-per-month-567282431.html</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>vonmoltke</author><text>&amp;gt; It is where I live, so weird visiting the US and seeing &amp;quot;ask your doctor for&amp;quot; adverts.&lt;p&gt;Those ads are a small portion of pharma marketing budgets for prescription products.  The vast majority goes to direct-to-doctor marketing.</text><parent_chain><item><author>ollie87</author><text>It is where I live, so weird visiting the US and seeing &amp;quot;ask your doctor for&amp;quot; adverts.&lt;p&gt;If I asked my GP for a specific medication they&amp;#x27;d look at me like an alien.</text></item><item><author>ptah</author><text>&amp;gt; research funding is dwarfed by marketing for example&lt;p&gt;i really believe pharma advertising should be banned</text></item><item><author>Someone1234</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m really past the whole &amp;quot;pharma need to charge high prices to fund research&amp;quot; line of argument. Aside from being factually untrue (research funding is dwarfed by marketing for example[0]), it is also arguing for a continued unhealthy relationship with pharmaceutical care.&lt;p&gt;A large amount of research is currently publicly funded. Either via public academic research or directly. When that research bears fruit it is often given away almost at-cost (or below cost when you take into account the larger research landscape) to pharma companies who then privately profit off of it.&lt;p&gt;Pharma companies are profiting off of your tax dollars and then turning around and profiting off of you too. Sure, the benefit exists, but this whole model is broken as all heck.&lt;p&gt;We should just scarp for-profit pharma development as an industry, increase public funding of research, and drug production factories should be a modest profit venture (e.g. 20% of the wholesale cost). Looking more like the generics industry today, where they produce, they don&amp;#x27;t develop.&lt;p&gt;Why do we need a private business to develop drugs at a 40%-1000%+[1] margin when the taxpayer could do it at nearly 0% margin? We&amp;#x27;ve chosen to make it this way, other countries haven&amp;#x27;t, and we see plenty of drugs developed via public institutions around the world.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bbc.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;business-28212223&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.bbc.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;business-28212223&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;economictimes.indiatimes.com&amp;#x2F;industry&amp;#x2F;healthcare&amp;#x2F;biotech&amp;#x2F;pharmaceuticals&amp;#x2F;retail-margin-on-generic-drugs-may-be-as-high-as-1000-claims-study&amp;#x2F;articleshow&amp;#x2F;58252850.cms?from=mdr&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;economictimes.indiatimes.com&amp;#x2F;industry&amp;#x2F;healthcare&amp;#x2F;bio...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Illinois governor signs law capping insulin costs at $100 per month</title><url>https://www.nbc15.com/content/news/Illinois-governor-signs-law-capping-insulin-costs-at-100-per-month-567282431.html</url></story>