The economic and environmental cost of delayed GM crop adoption: The case of Australia's GM canola moratorium.

Incorporating socio-economic considerations (SECs) into national biosafety regulations regarding genetically modified (GM) crops have opportunity costs. Australia approved the cultivation of GM canola through a science-based risk assessment in 2003, but allowed state moratoria to be instituted based on potential trade impacts over the period 2004 to 2008 and 2010 in the main canola growing states. This analysis constructs a counterfactual assessment using Canadian GM canola adoption data to create an S-Curve of adoption in Australia to measure the environmental and economic opportunity costs of Australia's SEC-based moratoria between 2004 and 2014. The environmental impacts are measured through the amount of chemical active ingredients applied during pest management, the Environmental Impact Quotient indicator, and greenhouse gas emissions. The economic impacts are measured through the variable costs of the weed control programs, yield and the contribution margin. The environmental opportunity costs from delaying the adoption of GM canola in Australia include an additional 6.5 million kilograms of active ingredients applied to canola land; a 14.3% increase in environmental impact to farmers, consumers and the ecology; 8.7 million litres of diesel fuel burned; and an additional 24.2 million kilograms of greenhouse gas (GHG) and compound emissions released. The economic opportunity costs of the SEC-based moratoria resulted in foregone output of 1.1 million metric tonnes of canola and a net economic loss to canola farmers' of AU$485.6 million. The paper provides some of the first quantified, post-adoption evidence on the opportunity cost and environmental impacts of incorporating SECs into GM crop regulation.

Combination Therapy of Anti-Tau and Anti-Amyloid Drugs for Disease Modification in Early-stage Alzheimer's Disease: Socio-economic Considerations Modeled on Treatments for Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and Breast Cancer.

Current drugs for treatment of mild to severe dementia of the Alzheimer's type include cholinesterase inhibitors and the NMDA non-competitive receptor antagonist memantine. There is controversy as to the additive benefit of these symptomatic drugs, and their effects are clinically modest. Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) are known to have characteristic pathology, including senile plaques with amyloid beta-protein aggregates and neurofibrillary tangles with assembled tau proteins, which start in the hippocampus and spread to neighboring areas. Amyloid and tau modifying drugs are under clinical testing. Based on this pathophysiology, it is crucial to investigate whether anti-amyloid and anti-tau combined therapy would show efficacy in early stage of AD, beyond what could be achieved with anti-amyloid or anti-tau monotherapy. It is equally important to consider the socio-economic implications of such a combination therapy, if effective. We hypothesize that the high costs of combination therapy for early-stage AD patients will require societal and public health initiatives to ensure universal access to AD treatment. In order to better predict these socio-economic implications, we summarize the management of other combination therapies used for tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and breast cancer, based on a database search of PubMed and other relevant sources. We put forward a framework for testing a potential anti-amyloid and anti-tau disease modifying combination therapy for early-stage AD patients and present an analysis of the socio-economic implications of such a combination therapy.