A form of overuse injury caused by repeating the same motions for hours on end over extended periods of time, RSI is often associated with computer keyboard work. It's not a new disease, however. Hand and arm problems associated with repetitive tasks first appeared in world medical literature in the 17th century with reports of "milkmaids' arm."
In the United States, blue-collar workers reported the first cases of RSI in 1912, when telegraph operators developed a mysterious ailment known as "telegraphists' cramp." Other workers reported such diseases as "washerwoman's thumb" and "glass arm," the latter a painful condition afflicting Morse Code operators during World War I. Assembly line workers, seamstresses, meat packers, and construction workers were later diagnosed with repetitive motion injuries as well.
Manufacturing workers, in fact, make up the lion's share of RSI or "repeated trauma" cases reported to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But over the last 25 years, as computer use has exploded, there's been a flood of such injuries among computer users as well.
In many offices across the country, employees are donning arm splints, missing work because of crippling pain, and even undergoing surgery due to injuries linked to repetitive keyboard work.
One government study puts the cost of RSI between $17 billion and $20 billion a year. [/QUOTE
The older a person is.. and the more time on the job the risk of a repetitive injury goes up.
foreign aid spending only consists of 1% of government expenditure
Not foreign aid.
U.S. consumers are in fact subsidizing other countries’ public health systems, at least with respect to drug pricing,” Jacob Sherkow, an associate professor at New York Law School, said.
These price discrepancies and their implications are well known throughout the industry but rarely discussed outside of it. Pharmaceutical companies have long defended the high price of drugs as necessary to pay for the research and development of new drugs, but the differences in pricing essentially means that consumers in the U.S. are contributing more than those in other countries. The U.S. accounted for 46 percent of global life sciences research and development--the vast majority of which is in biopharmaceuticals--according to the December 2013 issue of R&D Magazine.
“The U.S. is the global leader in biomedical innovation,” Mark Grayson, a spokesman for PhRMA, a pharmaceutical industry trade group that represents many of the world’s biggest drug companies, said in an email. “The research is for medicines that will be sold in the U.S. but obviously will be sold around the world,” he added.
International Business Times - Business News, Technology, Politics
And not just pharma.. all sorts of biotechnology as well. Its not "government" subsidy.. its subsidized by US consumers in the healthcare system.
A US company develops a new medical device or procedure. Its introduced into the US and its at a high cost. Which pays back the company for all the research and testing that was done. then.. when the procedure is fully developed, is more massed produced and is now cheaper.. European countries then allow this procedure into their system at a substantial decrease.