Are biotech jobs next to go?

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | April 18, 2004 | Bernadette Tansey

[sarcasm]

ping

[Lessismore]

Biotech takes a higher investment per employee in laboratory equipment and resources than does IT. Setting up a call center in India is easy. Setting up a genetics research lab is a lot harder. You also need a wide variety of highly specialized supplies to keep it going.

China has a better infrastructure for this, and China seems to produce more biologists, chemists, etc., than does India. Whether this reflects cultural values, availability of labs and equipment for training, or innate talent is hard to say. Perhaps Hindus are squeamish about doing animal experiments.

Another reason for sending biotech offshore is that many of those countries don't have the rules and regulations that encumber US researchers, e.g. stem cell research.

[Iris7]

Malaysia is going for biotech also. Government is paying for a bunch of Malaysia students (ethnic Chinese and Islamic only) in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin.

The Chinese are hot for biotech, and a bunch of infrastructure is in place. They appear to be able to synthesize any hormone you want on short notice for example.

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

Biotech research will eventually lead to the human race's extinction.

The unknown threats from tampering with nature are really scary.

[raybbr]

The unknown threats from tampering with nature are really scary.

And, that's just from the unintended consequences. Think of the damage done by intended consequences?

[neutrino]

Thanks for the ping, Sarcasm!

Foreign governments are making it a strategic national priority to attract U.S. biotech business, offering access to highly trained workers and fully equipped labs. Gleaming new research centers are springing up, like Singapore's Biopolis and India's Genome Valley around Hyderabad.

"They're throwing money at it, let me tell you,'' said Glenn Rice of SRI International, who has spent the past year scouting overseas cost-saving opportunities for biotech clients that outsource some of their drug development studies to the Menlo Park organization.

The above from the article. Notice that foreign governments perceive a benefit in bringing these jobs into their respective nations. We are throwing away our technological lead in the last area where we have an edge! Does anyone imagine that the Chinese workers who learn all the innermost details of our technology won't put that knowledge to work - perhaps in weapons we don't want to imagine?

We don't feed ourselves. We don't clothe ourselves. We don't build our own cars, or televisions, or telephones. And now we won't even produce our own medicines.

We are fatted sheep. And the wolves are growing stronger. End outsourcing before it destroys us!

If you want on or off my offshoring ping list, please FReepmail me.

[neutrino]

Foreign governments are making it a strategic national priority to attract U.S. biotech business, offering access to highly trained workers and fully equipped labs. Gleaming new research centers are springing up, like Singapore's Biopolis and India's Genome Valley around Hyderabad.

And now biotech is poised to depart...

Maybe we can all get jobs as mens' room attendants.

If you want on or off my offshoring ping list, please FReepmail me!

[FITZ]

It might be better to let China do biotech --- since they're trying to control population increases, maybe they'll allow fewer clonings --- and only keep the boy clones.

[sarcasm]

Maybe we can all get jobs as mens' room attendants.

Those jobs are reserved for our new guest workers.

[valkyrieanne]

Well, that was fast. It was gone before it was even here.

When are people going to wake up on this issue?

[null and void]

Just frickin' great. I'm in the process of breaking into the field. grrrrr.

[sarcasm]

Next year we'll be told that these are "buggy whip making" jobs.

[No_Doll_i]

neutrino

Thanks for pinging me always, I unusually get to the thread after everyone has stopped posting.. sigh

sarcasm

Great insights as usual.

I can only imagine where this could all lead and nothing I can envision is the least bit pretty.

It is only a matter of time (most likely a very short time) that China and India will make a move on this country. Lets fact it they are already close to holding us hostage for cheap walmart crap and all the credit/personal information on damn near every American citizen.

When the time comes, I hope all the so called free traders that post to these threads read some of the disdainful replies they have written and choke on their own words. Frankly I find the "I'll get mine, Screw your and yours" attitude about as UnAmerican as it gets.

I could go on and on, but time is limited, there are those of us that work no matter what day of the week it is just to try to stay ahead... we are called consultants/contractors

Thanks again guys.. I appreciate your posts always

[FITZ]

Those jobs are reserved for our new guest workers.

So are the construction, walmart, mcdonald's and many other jobs. What do they want Americans to do for a living? Once our incomes get low enough, we all qualify for food stamps, WIC, CHIP, EITC and a bunch more.

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

It might be better to let China do biotech --- since they're trying to control population increases

Maybe a virulent designer plague will get loose and "accidently" wipe out a few hundred million Chinese and Russians.

[null and void]

No møøselimbs?

[wku man]

"What do they want Americans to do for a living?"

Fight. Well, that's not what the want us to do, but that's what they're gonna get.

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[neutrino]

Maybe a virulent designer plague will get loose and "accidently" wipe out a few hundred million Chinese and Russians.

Perhaps. Or perhaps the Chinese - who are, after all, highly intelligent and hard working - will develop a designer virus that eliminates us.

Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences. A quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson.

[Euro-American Scum]

So are the construction, walmart, mcdonald's and many other jobs. What do they want Americans to do for a living? Once our incomes get low enough, we all qualify for food stamps, WIC, CHIP, EITC and a bunch more.

And exactly what tax base is going to support food stamps, GR, AFDC and the other alphabet-soup programs designed to keep the great unwashed masses afloat?

Keep your powder dry. You're going to need it before too much longer.