Indigo you are so right about the good guys having to work within the bad systems we have. It is those things that need to be changed. In my lifetime I have seen medicine change from being about looking after sick people, to being about big bucks. Here in the UK this is being brought home to us heavily this year with the sellout/sell-off of our NHS, something that nearly everyone is opposed to. I wonder when I see this how some of the huge studies that are underway here, observational studies on massive amounts of people running for many years - how will those be possible with a fragmented largely privatised system. I despair of any common sense ruling, because money is what drives everything, and mega-money at that. Like many I don't want to see huge sums going into 'scientific' research that tells us the same thing that common sense does. I also do not want to see money going into every random therapeutic chemical or process that can be exploited as a possibility, some of the studies are so random that it is doubtful whether there is a justification for them at all. Targeted, sensible research with good science behind it, like MJFF does, and no promises and press releases about imminent 'cures' available to patients within 5 years. When there is one we will be the first to know. But the new patients are the ones who currently suffer from hope, from family, friends, colleagues and information systems who tell them that a cure is nearly there. Quality of life has got to be a priority for now. Wellness centres, and support when we lose functionality are desperately needed, and are not there for the majority. In addition to this we are now being told (over here at least) that the old and the disabled are a huge burden and the cause of our economic woes. Yet we are all the time supporting, through our unwellness, an industry that is fairly unscrupulous, and on which we depend for both product and innovation.

Roll on change, I say, and some balance in the way things are run, and then maybe the pipelines for many things will unblock, and not just for us.