It's not necessary to put a dollar amount on a cure for cancer to consider it a tremendous medical advance. But two economists at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business have tried to do just that, concluding that a cure for the disease, which killed more than 570,000 Americans last year, would be worth about $50 trillion.[I find numbers that big difficult to assimilate. Billions are no problem, but trillions are tough to get a grip on.]
In fact, just a 1% reduction in overall cancer mortality could be valued at nearly $500 billion, they estimate.
Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel, who have long studied the economics of health, calculated the return on increasing the average American life span by eradicating the disease. Their study, slated to appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Political Economy, found that the value of such longevity gains would far exceed even today's rapidly rising medical expenditures.
To measure the economic benefit of longer lives, Murphy and Topel looked at longevity gains made in the 20th century, during which the nation's average life expectancy increased by 30 years, to age 78, thanks largely to improved sanitation, refrigeration, and vaccination measures. Those additional 30 years were worth about $1.2 million per person, the study concludes. And the improvements in life expectancy from 1970 to 2000 alone (primarily through medical advances) added $3.2 trillion a year to the economy. The two professors came up with their numbers by creating a model that deducts medical research and health-care expenditures from productivity and other gains.
Total health-related research spending in the U.S. last year was $28 billion.
The lesson of the last 50 years, says Murphy, is that we must "address the issue of research that will continue to extend longevity without breaking the bank." <<
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