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Asked by 472hemb29 to Stephanie, Melissa, Kevin, Kellie, Jonathan on 26 Apr 2016.
Question: Why will this experiment help the economy? In what ways will the economy be improved when your testing is done?
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Melissa Wilson Sayres answered on 26 Apr 2016:
Just like improving human health, improving the economy is not the direct goal of basic science research. We have people working on the direct improvements. Basic science often leads to many unexpected advances in human health (and by improving human health we improve the economy), but knowing which those discoveries will be or when they will happen is difficult to predict.
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Jonathan Jackson answered on 26 Apr 2016:
As Melissa said, it’s always hard to know how research and science will improve the world around us. Research from NASA back in the 1950s and 1960s led to inventions as diverse as cell phones and Teflon-covered skillets. We truly don’t know the endpoint of our research. As with all science, the more we know about the universe around us, the better we can make things for everyone.
That said, in my field of Alzheimer’s disease, we know that treatment and caregiving for the disease costs the United States $225 billion every year. That’s a huge drain on the economy, and could even bankrupt the Medicare system within a couple of decades if it continues. If experiments like the ones I’m doing prove fruitful, we will be able to diagnose and treat Alzheimer’s far earlier than we can now, improving health care and vastly reducing the economic burden of the disease.
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Stephanie Moon answered on 26 Apr 2016:
Similar to what Melissa and Jonathan have said, I work on basic research projects that try to figure out why diseases happen, so it’s more fundamental than creating a new drug to cure a disease or a new vaccine for example that would directly impact the economy. However, my research might lead to these things and indirectly help the economy.
There are actually research articles out there about how much different viruses or diseases impact the economy, like this one http://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0001426 from an ‘open access’ (free) journal. They say that in Singapore alone, sickness from Dengue virus cost their economy about a billion dollars over a 9 year period. And that’s only for one type of virus that’s carried by mosquitoes, in one place!
The other crazy thing is that we don’t actually know how much many diseases cost us economically, especially some veterinary diseases like BVDV. Seems like something we should figure out though!
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Kevin Baker answered on 26 Apr 2016:
Another thing I study is liver disease. It is very expensive to treat some of the diseases and often it leads to getting a new liver. Getting a new liver involves getting a transplantation from another person. When you get a new liver, you are on medications for the rest of your life, which can be very expensive. Certain diseases like hepatitis (or the swelling of your liver) are the number 1 reason for getting a liver transplant. By having a deeper understanding of the liver’s role in the body, we are hoping to develop a way to protect the liver before it needs to be replaced. Hopefully this will lead to cheaper healthcare treatments.
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Kellie Jaremko answered on 27 Apr 2016:
Pain, especially chronic pain after surgery or injury, is a common reason why people cannot work. People in pain also visit doctors and hospitals more often. By helping decrease or prevent long-term pain money spent on medical bills will be saved and people can keep working. Indirectly this would help the economy.
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