&gt;You should wonder if this is a good thing, if government should not be involved in this. At the moment, the decision what research to fund is economically driven. Diseases that aren&#x27;t profitable are ignored.<p>I think both should happen. That we <i>want</i> both to happen.<p>I fully support government subsidized programs, including research (and a safety net, and highway repair, and...). I&#x27;d love to see the government spend more on researching less profitable diseases.<p><i>However</i>, capitalism, for all its faults, is <i>very efficient</i> at some things. One of those things is the allocation of capital in research projects for those diseases that <i>are</i> profitable.<p>With government allocation of money, we <i>might</i> get the same results, but odds are good that the money would be allocated less than optimally.