> In the past 30 years have you heard of any medical innovation or drugs coming from anywhere other than the US?
Er, yes, _many_. See some of the recent work in HIV and cancer drugs, for instance, along with many more conventional drugs. It _is_ true that pharmaceutical companies (most of which are, these days, highly multinational) derive a lot of their profit from the US market, but they spend a lot there too; the industry spends more on marketing than research, and this is disproportionately targeted at the US, as it's one of the few countries where one may advertise prescription drugs directly at the general public.
> Of course the MRI machine was itself invented in the US
Hmm? Very arguable, that one. While its medical application seems to have been the product of an American academic (note, academic, not medical device company employee), NMR imaging (renamed MRI for medical purposes, presumably due to the unpopular word 'nuclear' in the original), was previously made feasible through work at the University of Nottingham, in the UK.
Like many inventions which came as a series of parts, it's rather hard to point and say 'Mr X invented this'; there are at least two American contenders, one British, and one Soviet.
Er, yes, _many_. See some of the recent work in HIV and cancer drugs, for instance, along with many more conventional drugs. It _is_ true that pharmaceutical companies (most of which are, these days, highly multinational) derive a lot of their profit from the US market, but they spend a lot there too; the industry spends more on marketing than research, and this is disproportionately targeted at the US, as it's one of the few countries where one may advertise prescription drugs directly at the general public.
> Of course the MRI machine was itself invented in the US
Hmm? Very arguable, that one. While its medical application seems to have been the product of an American academic (note, academic, not medical device company employee), NMR imaging (renamed MRI for medical purposes, presumably due to the unpopular word 'nuclear' in the original), was previously made feasible through work at the University of Nottingham, in the UK.
Like many inventions which came as a series of parts, it's rather hard to point and say 'Mr X invented this'; there are at least two American contenders, one British, and one Soviet.