GREATER MEDICAL RESEARCH WANTED

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30809, 22 July 1965, Page 21

GREATER MEDICAL RESEARCH WANTED

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, July 21. The New Zealand Medical Association wants medical research in New Zealand expanded to about five times its present volume and regulations framed, “which ensure that Government expenditure for medical services should include automatic provision fo rmedical research of at least 1 per cent of the total expenditure.”

In its newsletter dated July 20, the association said it seemed absurd and incredible any prosperous community should have to be urged to invest a reasonable proportion of its income in medical research.

“The fact, however. Is that only one-thirteenth of 1 per cent of the Government expenditure for next year is earmarked for medical research or, more significantly, onethird of 1 per cent of the total expenditure on health. “The main reason why a country as highly organised and as prosperous as New Zealand has lagged behind in the development of medical research lies in the mistaken notion that it is more profitable to ‘parasitise’ the scientific efforts of other countries and to devote our own resources to the exploitation of discoveries made abroad than to waste them in trying to make our own contribution.” But the absence of a body of trained scientific opinion led to delays in the introduction of new methods. New methods were often mistakenly or inefficiently used. Medical innovations depended on their final application on the social structure of the community to which they were to be applied. Slowing Down The absence of a research population led to a slowing down of medical progress. The lack of research facilities has led to a flight of the best scientific brains from New Zealand, said the association. “As pointed out by Sir Harold Himsworth (who reported on medical research in New Zealand) it is impossible

and would be undesirable to put an upper limit on the amount of medical research which should be undertaken. “It is, however, possible to define a certain level below which medical research in New Zealand cannot fail without an impairment of the quality of our medical services,” the association said. “It would be unhealthy and unwise to allow the medical schools and the large hospitals an absolute monopoly on medical research. “In addition, there must be opportunities for centrally directed research, for research in general practice and also sufficient latitude to ensure that eccentric schemes of research, arising outside the conventional foci, should not be invariably strangled at birth. 300 Scientists “Such a healthy expansion of medical research activities would require the equivalent of the facilities for approximately 300 full-time medical scientists. “This would cost approximately £1,000.000 a year . . . compared with the value of medical research to the community this is a ridiculously small sum. “It represents the economic value of the lives of about 25 young New Zealanders; it represents considerably less than 10 per cent of what New Zealanders spend on drugs and it represents only 1.6 per cent of the money which the Government spends on its medical services. “No reasonable businessman would refuse to reserve 1.6 per cent of his budget for the purpose of checking the efficiency of his business methods and of finding ways to improve them,” the association said.