[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 66 (Wednesday, May 24, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E818-E819]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 HOW TO DISCOVER NEW PHARMACEUTICAL CURES AT AFFORDABLE PRICES TO THE 
   PUBLIC? THE BRITISH ADMIRALTY'S 1714 SOLUTION AND INTRODUCTION OF 
               LEGISLATION TO SPEED THE CURE FOR DISEASES

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                        HON. FORTNEY PETE STARK

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, May 23, 2000

  Mr. STARK. Mr. Speaker, today, I am introducing legislation based on 
the highly successful Act of Parliament of 1714 which established a 
prize for the invention of an absolutely essential tool: the modern 
sextant necessary to prevent shipwrecks.
  My legislation would establish a series of prizes for the discovery 
of cures to many of the major diseases and illnesses that plague 
mankind. The prizes would be appropriate to the horror of the illness--
$10 billion tax free for a cure or prevention for Alzheimer's; $10 
billion for MS, $10 billion for AIDS, etc.
  The condition--the quid pro quo--is that the prize would go to an 
inventor/company (and cooperative consultation would be encouraged) in 
exchange for making the medical breakthrough available to the world at 
the cost of production.
  An unusual bill? Yes.
  But it worked before. And we desperately need to find a way to bring 
disease-curing, break-through drugs to market faster, but at a price 
that is affordable to the people who need them.
  I'm including in the Record a description of how the British 
Admiralty, quite tired of its fleets ramming into land unexpectedly and 
sinking with massive loss of life, offered the huge sum of 20,000 in 
1714 for the person who could ``discover longitude.'' The Library of 
Congress tells me that 20,000 Pounds Sterling in 1750 would be worth 
$401.4 million today. I assume that if the data allowed a conversion of 
Pounds to Dollars back to 1714, the amount would be about half a 
billion dollars. This huge prize led to a flurry of research and 
invention that produced the sextant and other devices and modernized 
the world of commerce and travel.
  To cure Alzheimer's, or MS, or AIDS, or Cancer, or the other major 
diseases is, I believe, worth more than half a billion dollars, and I 
would propose a tax free $10 billion prize per major disease. On just 
Alzheimer's, for example, by 2025 with the aging of the Baby Boomers, 
it is expected that 14 million Americans will have Alzheimer's. 
Conservatively assuming $50,000 a year in current dollars for the 
various costs to ``manage'' an Alzheimer's patient, the cost to society 
will be about $700 billion a year for this one disease! Clearly, a $10 
billion prize would be a bargain. The NIH could guide us on the size of 
prizes for other designated diseases.
  Why not rely on the current private sector process of finding cures?
  First, a lot of current private industry research is wasted in the 
research on ``me too'' drugs, vanity drugs, and marginal improvements 
in existing products. The U.S. pharmaceutical companies profit levels 
are about 50 percent higher than their R&D budgets, and their overhead, 
sales, and lobbying expenses are twice as high. We need to focus the 
companies and the scientific community on major breakthroughs, not me 
toos.

[[Page E819]]

  Second, when a major breakthrough is invented, it is priced--at least 
in the United States--at such sky-high levels that access to life-
saving drugs has become the major source of inflation in the economy 
and is unaffordable to the poor and sick. The industrialized world's 
drug companies resist allowing low cost production in the world's 
poorest nations, thus leaving millions to suffer and die needlessly, 
and even in America, the poor find their pharmaceutical care severely 
rationed.
  The tax-free prize I am proposing would give any company or scientist 
the appropriate honor and monetary reward in exchange for ensuring the 
life-saving invention is available to society at a reasonable price.
  Following is an excerpt from ``Evolution of the Sextant'' by Rod 
Cardoza of the Sea West Company.

       Until the very early years of the 18th century a mariner's 
     navigation consisted of sunshots to determine the latitude 
     and dead reckoning, coupled with piloting, to estimate the 
     longitude. Latitude, the distance north or south of the 
     equator, is the horizontal component of the imaginary grid 
     system encircling the earth, unaffected by the earth's 
     rotation relative to the stars. Longitude, the distance east 
     or west on the earth's surface, is the vertical component of 
     these lines of position. It changes constantly, with respect 
     to the heavens, as the earth rotates. Thus a key element in 
     most methods of determining longitude is precise time 
     keeping.
       The onset of the 18th century saw new methods and 
     instruments innovated for finding the elusive longitude. 
     Among these, the lunar distance method found favor with the 
     English, culminating in the perfection of the reflecting 
     circle by Mayer, Borda, and Troughton toward the end of the 
     century. Another method, longitude by change in compass 
     variation, promised an easy solution in theory, but was not 
     precise enough to be of any value in practice.
       The search for the longitude generated some bizarre 
     proposals. In one case Sir Kenelm Digby claimed that he had 
     caused one of his medical patients to jump with a start, even 
     though the two were separated by a great distance. This was 
     accomplished by placing some specially invented ``powder of 
     sympathy'' into a bucket of water and then adding a bandage 
     taken from the patient's wound. This ``fact'' led to the 
     suggestion that every ship should be equipped with a wounded 
     dog. On shore, a diligent individual equipped with a standard 
     pendulum clock and a powdered bandage from the dog's wound, 
     would dip the bandage into water at the stroke of each hour 
     causing the dog aboard the ship to yelp at the appropriate 
     instant!
       The impractical application of all these systems was 
     becoming tragically obvious. Several instances of entire 
     squadrons of British ships being lost due to imprecise 
     navigation occurred in 1691, 1707, and again in 1711. These 
     losses provided a final impetus to the British Admiralty to 
     pass a bill ``for providing a publick reward for such person 
     or persons as shall discover the Longitude,'' in 1714. The 
     amount of the reward was K20,000--a phenomenal sum at the 
     time--indicative of the importance placed upon perfecting an 
     accurate means of navigating.
       Finally in 1735, John Harrison, a Yorkshire carpenter, 
     successfully constructed the first marine chronometer having 
     some components of wood and weighing 125 pounds! Because of 
     its precise timekeeping ability, the chronometer, in 
     perfected form, was later to become an indispensable addition 
     to nearly every ocean-going vessel afloat. As a result of his 
     successful contribution Harrison eventually received the 
     reward. In the interim, the modern era in navigation had 
     begun.
       The increased activity in ``the search for the longitude'' 
     also spurred innovative interest in other areas of 
     navigation. In 1731 John Hadley demonstrated his new 
     reflecting quadrant to fellow members of the Royal Society in 
     London. His quadrant was based on the principle of light 
     reflection and angles of incidence described by Robert Hooke, 
     Issac Newton, and Edmund Halley nearly a century earlier.

     

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