Profits, Pharmaceutical Companies, and crimes against humanity?

Question

Any discussion or action against the pharmaceutical companies for denial of access to life saving medications? Millions are dying in the name of profit. Look at the court records by PMA and drug companies. They have fought to limit licencing and generic sales. They are clearly making decisions to maximize profit that are causing the death and misery of millions. Imagine 200 MILLON dying because Roche has restricted production of Tamiflu for profits if H5N1 becomes infectious in humans, currently mortality rates are over 50%. Isn’t this genocide, genocide of the poor? I am sure twenty years from now these will be widely viewed as crimes against humanity. Roche shows how far they are willing to go. How many died in the Holocaust?

Answer 1

You are absolutely right. Pharmaceutical companies hold patents on their drugs so that generics can't be made until the patent expires. But, when the expiration of the patent is coming to an end, they legally change one thing that has nothing to do with the effectiveness of the drug and extend the patent. This does put the drug out of many of the poors reach.

Why is that allowed?

Because pharmaceutical companies, like all large companies, buy the law makers who make the laws. The government as well as corporations do not see you as an individual but as resource to be manipulated for profit. If there is no profit coming from you, that is a poor person, they could care less about you.

The people in the United States of America take more prescription drugs per person than any other country in the world. Why is that so? Is it because doctors are actually paid to push prescriptions onto patients? That is true. How do you think pharmaceutical companies get their information for their studies? Again, you are nothing to them as an individual - just a source of profits and when you don't have money they don't care.

As the baby boomer generation ages, pharmaceutical companies feared that they would be forced to lower their prices or that more people would go through Canada to get their prescriptions filled. They bought laws to try to stop people from getting prescriptions through Canada by making it difficult. When they seen that the baby boomers were getting ready to flex their collected muscle and demand change, they bought a new Medicare Drug Plan. Anyone eligible for it paid less for prescriptions BUT the pharmaceutical companies as well as insurance companies got a HUGE profit out of it and will continue to do so because the price of drugs went up and the insurance companies got more customers. Why? Because now the government will pay for it all which means the taxpayer.

So, will the pharmaceutical companies ever be charged with crimes against humanity? Will fast food companies ever be charged with making people obese even though they have known for years that it's the steroids in their hamburger patties that are making people fat?

The answer is no. They are the ones who make the laws by buying the lawmakers and the lawmakers aren't going to bite the hands that feed them, buy them yachts, vacation homes, new cars, etc.

Answer 2

When a company spends money on R&D to develop a new miracle drug, they are taking a big chance that they will be successful. Along the way, some drug candidates never get FDA approval. Or a competitor releases a new drug that is better. Basically, after doing the research, and sharing new information with the rest of the industry, and facing the failure of potential products along the way, they have to EEK out a profit, so they can begin again on new research projects.

Then, when their patents expire, their competitors can make it and sell it cheaper.

So while the state of our health looks grim today; in 50 years, nearly all of today's drugs will be low cost generics. The long term profitability of the drug company looks quite grim if they don't have high profits today, to get to tomorrow.

Answer 3

First, Tamiflu does not treat the H5N1. Doctors have already tried it on existing cases and it was useless, so it would hardly be genocide to deny an avian flu patient Tamiflu.

Second, drug companies need profits from the drugs they discover/invent to invest in the research and development of new medications - particularly the more elusive ones. Without significant cash flow from their products, drug companies can't continue with the development of cancer treatments, cures for AIDS, cures for Alzheimer's, etc. Showing a high profit encourages more investors who provide the funding necessary for such an endeavor.

A number of the big drug companies offer aid programs for low income patients requiring their prescription medications. Many of them also donate large amounts of their medications to areas of the world that desperately need it.

Stop listening to extremist propaganda and go research the facts.

Answer 4

Nope, it's called the cost of producing medicine.

Trials of potential medicines take YEARS and cost MILLIONS of dollars. If you are going to deny that to the companies that make new drugs, then we're not going to have any new drugs. Ever.

Remember this when the next major disease comes around, or the bird flu, or a relative is saved by a new drug. Or when you talk to a woman whose life has been saved by one of the new breast cancer drugs.

Sure, it would be great to share ever single new drug with everyone. But don't pinch off the supply of funds for new discoveries, or we will have no new cures in the pipeline. Personally, I can't live with that.

Answer 5

Did you know the pharmaceutical conglomerate IG Farben was tried at Nuremburg after the war. That firm supplied 4 1/2 tons of Zyclon-B to the SS....per month. The directors of the firm were squirming on the stand when the prosecutors presented the bills of lading to them.

So, nothing has changed, the dollar is still their driving force of pharmaceutical companies.

Answer 6

Yes, I've thought about this. The opposite side of the equation is "How many lives have the evil pharmaceutical companies saved?"

My feeling is that if you don't like what a pharmaceutical business is doing...start your own...and give your product away. Some people are greedy...and if we make laws to make them "ungreedy"...they'll simply go away and do something else.

People would die with out food, too. Should we expect the food manufacturers to give their product away?

It's pretty simple.

Answer 7

So what do you propose? We could force the pharma companies to give away thier product, true. And the next action of those companies would be to stop producing. Without profit there is no incentive for R&D or even to produce at all.

Answer 8

Do you have a question, or are you merely ranting?

Or do you think that the pharmaceutical industry is a non-profit industry, and that re-couping costs on BILLIONS of dollars in R&D is wrong?

Perhaps you're pointing the finger at an industry rather than government, who is more in the business of charity.

Answer 9

Thats not a question - it's a bleeding newspaper article.