Subject: Re: NIH Resumes Funding of Grants
Here is something that liberals don't understand, tax payer dollars are finding their way to fund programs that make no sense to main street,

I have no doubt that tax dollars are going to programs that are abstruse to Main Street, and I’d even happily acknowledge that some of it is wasteful. That’s the nature of research: you never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes you hit the mother lode, sometimes you get nothing.

I’d argue against using “Main Street” as the barometer, however, because “Main Street” isn’t really equipped to make evaluations of that sort, which is why we come to rely on (so-called) “experts.” (Yes, they make mistake too, lots of them, and sometimes egregious ones, but I don’t know of a better way to do it.)

Everyone knows the story of the discovery of penicillin, an accident found while a scientist was investigating staphylococcus bacteria (I’m sure Main Street would approve.) But it was when he saw mold stopping the growth that he switched to investigating “mold”, an enterprise which continued for years, and which was only successfully developed as the first antibiotic *eleven* years later that the wonders of the refined drug became apparent. How long would “Main Street” have stood for funding research on “mold”, do you suppose?

A more contemporary example exists in the research into lizard venom . I dare predict “Main Street” would have laughed this idea off the planet. Yet it was this area that led to unsuccessful, then successful diabetes therapies, and eventually to the blockbuster drugs of weight loss so popular today: Ozempic and similar. (Note that *again* public dollars were used, while private profits resulted - as often happens. See: the Internet, silicon chips, EV batteries, etc.)

Every now and then, scientists develop treatments that end up being even more popular for another condition entirely. Think of Viagra, originally for high blood pressure, now used for erectile dysfunction. Or thalidomide, a dangerous morning sickness treatment that is now a valuable cancer treatment.

The blockbuster drug Ozempic was originally developed to treat type 2 diabetes, a condition that results in too much glucose, or sugar, in the blood. This is because the body can’t effectively use the insulin it produces.

Enter a poisonous lizard

In the 1980s John Pisano, a biochemist with a penchant for venoms, and a young gastroenterologist Jean-Pierre Raufman were working with poisonous lizard venom from the Gila monster, a slow-moving reptile native to the south of the United States and north of Mexico. By the 1990s, Pisano, Raufman and colleague John Eng identified a hormone-like molecule they called exendin-4. This stimulated insulin secretion via action at the same receptor as GLP-1.

Excitingly, exendin-4 was not quickly metabolised by the body, and so might be useful as a diabetic therapeutic.
https://theconversation.com/th...

(Although this article doesn’t mention it, it was NIH grants that funded some of the research into the development of the semi-glutide drugs. How do you think “Main Street”, or Musk’s Doge boys would react when they see “We’re looking into the possible use of lizard poison for weight loss.”?)

Anyway, there are tons of stories similar to this, and probably more tons of research dollars wasted that came to nothing. If everybody knew what would pay off, we’d be in the casino with only Royal Flushes at the poker table, but it doesn’t work like that.

Conservatives seem to like to point to the failures (Solyndra!) rather than the successes (the rest of that entire portfolio). I wish you guys would adopt a “fair and balanced” approach, and rely less on populist clap trap and more on the advice of experts (who, I repeat, can also be wrong, and often are.)

Thanks for your attention.