Randall Parker uses a recent advance in the quest to apply stem cells to regenerate baldness as a springboard for thoughts on where the funding goes first these days:

I am convinced that rejuvenation therapies that improve outward appearances will hit the market much more rapidly than therapies that make inner organs young again. There are at least four reasons for that. First and most obviously, the skin and hair follicles are easier to reach. Second, people care (however unwisely) more about their outsides than the age of their livers or kidneys. They want to look young and that desire is pretty intense. Third, at least in the United States plastic surgery therapies do not appear to be as tightly regulated as most therapies. Fourth, people spend their own money on plastic surgery and other appearance enhancing therapies. Conservative insurance company rules for which therapies are legitimate do not hold back the introduction of new therapies.

My, it's almost as though less regulated markets have faster rates of progress and more rapid competitive introduction of new technologies. Funny that - or at least it would be funny if all the regulation that does exist today wasn't leading to an unending series of deaths; people dying because politicians and a thousand greedy parasites have their hooks into the engine of medical development, slowing the development of therapies in the name of their own short-term advantage.

Technorati tags: libertarian, medical research, regulation

Posted by Reason at October 9, 2006 7:48 PM | TrackBack (0)