The bit about the vaccine sitting on the shelf for 20 years makes me think: what other potential treatments are available but not researched/deployed due to lack of commercial incentive? I wonder if there’s a systematic research to identify the most promising interventions in this category.
Probably the most shocking story of shelved innovations (not much talked about) is the discovery of the best malaria treatment we have in 1972, which took over 25 years to become the treatment of choice. A combination of China hiding the discovery and western mistrust, how many lives could have been saved if it had come into use 20 years earlier?
The bit about the vaccine sitting on the shelf for 20 years makes me think: what other potential treatments are available but not researched/deployed due to lack of commercial incentive? I wonder if there’s a systematic research to identify the most promising interventions in this category.
That’s a great comment Eli—I’m not sure there is!
Probably the most shocking story of shelved innovations (not much talked about) is the discovery of the best malaria treatment we have in 1972, which took over 25 years to become the treatment of choice. A combination of China hiding the discovery and western mistrust, how many lives could have been saved if it had come into use 20 years earlier?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4966551/