Death to Dollars Ratio

I haven't yet gone on my rant about how there are many legitimate reasons that drugs cost so much money (in that it takes so much to research, develop, and conduct clinical trials). And perhaps I have had an underlying assumption that the research dollars are spent with a certain priority. If anything, there might not be enough money to go around, but we, the "industry", spend it in the right places so that the most deaths are prevented and/or people live comfortably and in a healthy manner.

But then you come across an astounding piece of data such as this from a recent article in Wired: For every death from AIDS, the US federal research establishment awards approximately $69,000 in grant funds. And for every death from MRSA [Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, virulent staph infection), it awards $570.

Wow.  The article goes on to say that the number of deaths from each infection is about the same, which further begs the question "why the disparity in funding?!" I know there are many different ways to look at this information (e.g. normalizing it against the number of people who do not die from infections), but it does remind me of discussions with research professors about how the "sexy" research gets the most funding. Yes, the emergence of AIDS demanded such developments in treatment, but why aren't we (in this case, society) catching on to the urgent need to combat these "superbugs" such as MRSA? After all, shouldn't we be striving for the greatest good?

Aristotle's Rhetoric (Book I, Chapter 7): "A thing productive of a greater good than another is productive of is itself a greater good than that other. For this conception of "productive of a greater" has been implied in our argument. Likewise, that which is produced by a greater good is itself a greater good; thus, if what is wholesome is more desirable and a greater good than what gives pleasure, health too must be a greater good than pleasure."