The Costs of Cancer Treatment

Something to think about from a Slate book review, via Thus Spake Zuska:

Provenge has shown some success against advanced prostate cancer. But it also costs about $93,000. Gleevec can cost $4,500 per month. Revlimid, another cutting-edge treatment for multiple myeloma, can cost $10,000 per month. It's hard to see how these prices might come down when the market consists of patients increasingly fragmented not only by type of cancer but even by types of mutation.

Or course this isn't a call for 'silver bullet' treatments; cancer isn't just one disease. But the economics can be tricky. Simple supply and demand suggests that market fragmentation and personalized medicine will only drive prices up and split research dollars. It isn't quite so simple, though. Most personalized medicines will be built on common technologies which could even have the opposite effect - higher demand for core technology, modified on a case-by-case basis. Still, looking at the above costs of cancer treatment, I'm glad to live in a country with universal health care.

Debts Real and Percieved

Simultaneously one of most insightful and hilarious things I've heard in a long time. In her 2008 Massey Lecture, Margaret Atwood explores the nature of debt through the modern-day tale of "Scrooge Nouveau". Proving that with a little imagination, it's possible to derive inspiration and humor from something as depressing as the economic realities of our times. This is why we need writers.

You can listen the 2008 Massey Lecture podcast "Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth" here, courtesy of public broadcaster TV Ontario. If you enjoy this sort if thing it's also worth poking around the TVO website, and subscribing to the Big Ideas podcast in particular. They usually have great stuff.

Quote of the Week

This week's quote is anti-chicken soup for the soul, a particularly devastating kick-in-the-balls and slap-in-the-face to the modern scientist. Naturally I have to share it:

"What could be cruder than a human being, who is limited to a narrow area of knowledge and practice and has the naivety of a child in most other areas? This is one of the elements that accounts for our clinical state of unconsciousness."

- John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization (1995 Massey Lectures)

Trying to think of a clever analogy to swarm behavior, but my narrow and naive mind fails me...

The Economics of Parking

Next time you're cruising around the block for 15 minutes looking for a free parking spot there are some numbers to think about. Over the course of a year, this type of parking search results in innumerable excess miles driven (one group puts the number at around 950 000 for a 15-block business district) and all the associated pollution and greenhouse gases. In large cities, this is also a major cause of gridlock with up to 45% of drivers claiming they were just looking for a parking spot. The solution? According to Canadian-born William Vickrey, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in economics: increase the cost of curbside parking. By increasing the cost of street parking to market value on par with off-street parking lots, policy makers can fix prices such that they ensure an 85/15 ratio -- "85% occupancy means that the curb spaces will be well used and 15% vacancy means that they will be readily available," says Douglas Shoup, professor of urban planning at UCLA. Of course most drivers would balk at the idea of more expensive curbside parking, but in cities where this kind of idea is being considered and implemented the increased revenues are put directly back into the metered communities.