首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below. Keep ta
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below. Keep ta
admin
2014-12-30
65
问题
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.
Keep taking the tablets
The history of aspirin is a product of a rollercoaster ride through time, of accidental discoveries, intuitive reasoning and intense corporate rivalry.
In the opening pages of Aspirin: The Remarkable Story of a Wonder Drug, Diarmuid Jeffreys describes this little white pill as ’one of the most amazing creations in medical history, a drug so astonishingly versatile that it can relieve headache, ease your aching limbs, lower your temperature and treat some of the deadliest human diseases’.
Its properties have been known for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptian physicians used extracts from the willow tree as an analgesic, or pain killer. Centuries later the Greek physician Hippocrates recommended the bark of the willow tree as a remedy for the pains of childbirth and as a fever reducer. But it wasn’t until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that salicylates — the chemical found in the willow tree — became the subject of serious scientific investigation. The race was on to identify the active ingredient and to replicate it synthetically. At the end of the nineteenth century a German company, Friedrich Bayer & Co, succeeded in creating a relatively safe and very effective chemical compound, acetylsalicylic acid, which was renamed aspirin.
The late nineteenth century was a fertile period for experimentation, partly because of the hunger among scientists to answer some of the great scientific questions, but also because those questions were within their means to answer. One scientist in a laboratory with some chemicals and a test tube could make significant breakthroughs — whereas today, in order to map the human genome for instance, one needs ’an army of researchers, a bank of computers and millions and millions of dollars’.
But an understanding of the nature of science and scientific inquiry is not enough on its own to explain how society innovates. In the nineteenth century, scientific advance was closely linked to the industrial revolution. This was a period when people frequently had the means, motive and determination to take an idea and turn it into reality. In the case of aspirin that happened piecemeal — a series of minor, often unrelated advances, fertilised by the century’s broader economic, medical and scientific developments, that led to one big final breakthrough.
The link between big money and pharmaceutical innovation is also a significant one. Aspirin’s continued shelf life was ensured because for the first 70 years of its life, huge amounts of money were put into promoting it as an ordinary everyday analgesic. In the 1970s other analgesics, such as ibuprofen and paracetamol, were entering the market, and the pharmaceutical companies then focused on publicising these new drugs. But just at the same time, discoveries were made regarding the beneficial role of aspirin in preventing heart attacks, strokes and other afflictions. Had it not been for these findings, this pharmaceutical marvel may well have disappeared.
So the relationship between big money and drugs is an odd one. Commercial markets are necessary for developing new products and ensuring that they remain around long enough for scientists to carry out research on them. But the commercial markets are just as likely to kill off certain products when something more attractive comes along. In the case of aspirin, a potential ’wonder drug’ was around for over 70 years without anybody investigating the way in which it achieved its effects, because they were making more than enough money out of it as it was. If ibuprofen or paracetamol had entered the market just a decade earlier, aspirin might then not be here today. It would be just another forgotten drug that people hadn’t bothered to explore.
None of the recent discoveries of aspirin’s benefits were made by the big pharmaceutical companies; they were made by scientists working in the public sector. ’The reason for that is very simple and straightforward,’ Jeffreys says in his book. ’Drug companies will only pursue research that is going to deliver financial benefits. There’s no profit in aspirin any more. It is incredibly inexpensive with tiny profit margins and it has no patent any more, so anyone can produce it.’ In fact, there’s almost a disincentive for drug companies to further boost the drug, he argues, as it could possibly put them out of business by stopping them from selling their more expensive brands.
So what is the solution to a lack of commercial interest in further exploring the therapeutic benefits of aspirin? More public money going into clinical trials, says Jeffreys. ’If I were the Department of Health, I would say "this is a very inexpensive drug. There may be a lot of other things we could do with it." We should put a lot more money into trying to find out.’
Jeffreys’ book — which not only tells the tale of a ’wonder drug’ but also explores the nature of innovation and the role of big business, public money and regulation — reminds us why such research is so important.
Questions 27-32
Complete each sentence with the correct ending A-H from the box below.
Write the correct letter A-H in boxes 27-32 on your answer sheet.
A the discovery of new medical applications.
B the negative effects of publicity.
C the large pharmaceutical companies.
D the industrial revolution.
E the medical uses of a particular tree.
F the limited availability of new drugs.
G the chemical found in the willow tree.
H commercial advertising campaigns.
The creation of a market for aspirin as a painkiller was achieved through
选项
答案
H
解析
Paragraph 5: ... huge amounts of money were put into promoting it as an ordinary everyday analgesic.
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/JRNO777K
本试题收录于:
雅思阅读题库雅思(IELTS)分类
0
雅思阅读
雅思(IELTS)
相关试题推荐
数列按照1,2,2,3,3,3,4,4,4,4,5,…的规律一直排下去,whichofthefollowingisthe100thnumber?
Becausemanyoftheblacklistsinthecommunicationsandentertainmentindustriesweresecret,thenumberofplaywrights,script
Althoughhumanshavemuchbiggerbrainsrelativetobodyweightthandootherprimates,thetotalrestingenergyrequire
Theattitudethatascientist______applyingakindoffoodcolorantscarcelyindicatesthatsheis______,forshemaysimplycar
Leavingasidethequestionofhowblackholesgeneratetheenergyingamma-raybursts-cosmicexplosionscalledGRBs-their
Aroundtheworld,thebicycleisafavoritemethodoftransportation,especiallyLineinChina.Withitslargeurbanpopulation
BenjaminFranklinwasrenownedforbeinga______,havingdelveddeeplyintofieldsasdiverseaspolitics,business,diplomacy,
Momentumgatheredforanewpropertytax,butthe(i)______fromhomeownerswassogreatthatthisproposalhadtobe(ii)______
Thecity’s______atmosphereresultedfromitslocationatthecrossroadsoftraderoutesusedbymerchantsofmanynations.
DisplaysintheAustralianMuseum’sexhibitionondinosaursaredesignedtobetouched,offeringvisitors______experience.
随机试题
患者,女性,34岁。因咳嗽、发热2天到卫生院就诊,经诊断为上呼吸道感染,给予肌内注射链霉素0.5g。10分钟后,患者面色苍白、呼吸急促,继而抽搐、昏迷,立即行紧急抢救,40分钟后,呼吸心跳停止。患者死后,其家属认为该院未对患者做皮试就行注射,是院方责任。根
会计电算化系统中核心子系统是()子系统。
Annuallymyfamilyhasaget-togetherinastateparkinthemountainsofNorthCarolina.Atoneoftheget-togethers,theweath
设y=5x,则y’=
货银对付是指证券登记结算机构与结算参与人在交手过程中,当且仅当资金交付时给付证券、证券交付时给付资金。()
周期型行业的运动状态与经济周期呈负相关,既当经济处于上升时期,这些行业会收缩;当经济衰退时,这些行业会扩张。()
证券交易活动中,涉及公司的经营、财务或者对该公司证券的市场价格有重大影响的尚未公开的信息,为内幕信息。下列选项中,属于内幕信息的有()。I.公司增资的计划Ⅱ.公司股权结构的重大变化Ⅲ.公司营业用主要资产的抵押、出售或者
简述文化对教育的制约作用。
五张卡片上分别写上字母A、A、B、B、B,将五张卡片随机地排成一行,恰好排成英文单词BABAB或。BBBAA的概率为()。
研究者在短时间内给被试重复呈现刺激或者提供学习,然后观测被试发生的变化,这种研究方法是()设计。
最新回复
(
0
)