[achtung]

Fact is, a drug company makes more money with a treatment for a disease like cancer than it would a cure.

Just a thought.

[Nuke]

Companies don't have to create these drugs. Pharmacueticals are not a right. I suppose that people don't understand the risks and time and money involved in creating new drugs especially AIDS and Cancer drugs.

damn sklippy pharmacuticals arent a right, if they were then there would be far fewer people *****ing about poor health care. what you and goober say has merit. pharmicuticals is a buisness. my question is why? surely theres a better way to organize such an industry that by making it corprate. havent we realized yet that you cant apply one single economic model to everything?

[Roanoke]

Their favourite trick is to investigate ancient treatments, the kind handed down through geberations by obscure indiginous tribes, patent it, attempt to block said people from continuing to use it, then attempt to sell it back for a tidy profit.

It's that kind of blatant commercialisim, at the expense of locals, and the goverments aparant disinterest in stopping it, than pisses people off.

[an0n]

No, it's having to pay for goods and services that pisses people off.

They do ****-all with their life and eek out a living just good enough to get by, then whine when they can't afford something they want/need and start drumming up moral and ethical arguments to try and force the company offering those goods/services to give them free ****.

[Roanoke]

did you even read my post ? 

[an0n]

Yes.

If they're sitting out in the ****ing Australian outback doing nothing that contributes to the advancement of the species, they deserve to die.

[Rictor]

Here's the problem  A company spends millions of dollars to develop a cure for a certain disease (let's say bird flu).  Then the government forces them to give it away for free because there's supposedly a significant risk for a global bird flu pandemic.  So now the company has nothing to show for those millions of dollars.  What incentive does it have to develop a cure for the next pandemic that rolls around?

Like all tough moral dilemmas, this doesn't appear to have an easy solution.  Perhaps what should happen is the goverment itself buys the medicine and distributes it, instead of forcing the company to give it away directly.

First of all, in your hypothetical case the government would most likely compensate the drug company, and quite well at that. Secondly, we're not talking about making an honest profit for hard work, we're talking about profit margins which amount to highway robbery. If everyone here is alright with ripping off the RIAA and MPAA because they're rolling and money and expect poor college kids to pay their criminal prices, than why does intellectual property suddenly become sacred when it's not your entertainment at stake, but rather the lives of millions.

I don't buy the notion that advances come purely, or even primarily, due to financial incentive. What incentive did Gallileo have? Newton? Tesla? The guy who invented penicillin? If a person decides to go into the field of medical research, I'm willing to bet that he most likely has more noble motives in mind than money. Saving lives is an essential services. Fire fighters, police, hospitals (in most countries) are all public institutions, because they service is a matter of life and death, and is not for anyone to profit off of. Most public sectors jobs such as teachers, office workers etc aren't getting paid tons of money. A teacher has ****ty pay for lots of work. So are we facing a shortage of teachers? Of course not, because there are still people out there who aspire to teach for more high-minded reasons than their own comfort.

And lastly, as everyone knows by age 2, it's perfectly alright to steal from the rich.

[aldo_14]

Here's the problem  A company spends millions of dollars to develop a cure for a certain disease (let's say bird flu).  Then the government forces them to give it away for free because there's supposedly a significant risk for a global bird flu pandemic.  So now the company has nothing to show for those millions of dollars.  What incentive does it have to develop a cure for the next pandemic that rolls around?

Like all tough moral dilemmas, this doesn't appear to have an easy solution.  Perhaps what should happen is the goverment itself buys the medicine and distributes it, instead of forcing the company to give it away directly.

Actually, that's somewhat simplified as the governments and countries in question simply can't afford to buy the medicine.  Even the NHS struggles, and that's in a supposedly first world country.

[WeatherOp]

Why doesn't other countries help them pay for the cost of the drugs.

[aldo_14]

Why doesn't other countries help them pay for the cost of the drugs.

Why would they?  God, we can't have all those funny skinned foreigners actually living, can we?  Next they'll want to keep their natural resources and stuff.

[an0n]

You remember you live in the UK, right?

With the NHS.

That can barely keep us alive, let alone a bajillion starving, diseased Africans.

[an0n]

I should read up a few post before making snarky comments....

[WeatherOp]

Why doesn't other countries help them pay for the cost of the drugs.

Why would they?  God, we can't have all those funny skinned foreigners actually living, can we?  Next they'll want to keep their natural resources and stuff.

Sounds like a plan.

[Kosh]

Companies don't have to create these drugs. Pharmacueticals are not a right. I suppose that people don't understand the risks and time and money involved in creating new drugs especially AIDS and Cancer drugs.

What is the point in denying treatment to those who could not afford it in the first place?

When someone who is close to you dies because he or she could not afford the medications he or she needed to live, I'll come back and I will remind you of what you said. Maybe then you will understand why you are wrong.

Btw, you should go preach the "you can't have drugs that will save your life because you are poor" to this little boy.



Oh wait, you can't. Both of his parents are poor and dead from disease, and now he is dead from disease.

[an0n]

What is the point in denying treatment to those who could not afford it in the first place?

"If I wasn't downloading movies, I just wouldn't watch any. So it's not like I'm stealing anything....."

[Tyrian]

What we really need in America is a system of controls limiting the cost of medicine.  If the set price doesn't legitimately meet the profit needs of the company, then the government can subsidize the businesses...not like they need it though... 

Yeah, it toes the line on Socialism, but then would you want the job of telling a 5 year old that their parents weren't worth saving because they didn't have $15,000 a month to blow on lifesaving medicine? 

I knew a 77 year old man, very active in the community, ran a woodshop for seniors, and volunteered to help troubled youth (turned out he was pretty good at it).  He was diagnosed with acute leukemia.  It was treatable, but expensive.  He died because he couldn't afford his medication and his insurance company wouldn't pay for it, even though it was covered (The insurance company's reason:  Too expensive). 

Another true story:  A doctor specialized in treating advanced cases of cancer.  He had a death rate in excess of  70%.  All his patients were treminally ill, the "unsaveables."  That meant he saved 30% of those who others had given up on.  He was an out-of-network physician, not attached to any insurance company.  So many cancer patients left the insurance networks that the companies deemed him a threat to their profits.  They managed to get a story published in the local newspaper, slandering him compeley, because he was saving lives.  He was forced to close his practice. 

All in the name of the almighty dollar.

I find it incredible that this can even happen.  It seems to me that medical capitalism has crossed the line from healthy competition to managed murder. 

My point is, what if you were seriously ill and were denied lifesaving medicine, based solely on your financial status.  How would you feel?

[Kosh]

All the stuff Tyrian said

Couldn't agree with you more. I find it deeply ironic that people like redmanace say that human life is precious so abortions should be outlawed, yet would say to a child that his life is not worth the expense of treating whatever illness he had. Absolutly disgusting.

[Bobboau]

for some perverse reason I actualy like the idea that if you have enough cash you can buy youself a few more years, I must be evil or something. I don't see medicines are a necesity or a right, I see them as a luxury, this isn't some natural resource it's a medical/industrial product, I don't see why it's our responcibility to ensure that everyone liveing in mud huts should be given cures we found, if a group of people is incapable of surviveing in the modern climate, then they will and should die, just as every other organism on the planet has for the last four billion years.

[Mars]

No offense but that was one of the most arrogent, egocentric, things I've heard in a long time

"It's not our problem that people are dieing out there."

[Mefustae]

for some perverse reason I actualy like the idea that if you have enough cash you can buy youself a few more years, I must be evil or something. I don't see medicines are a necesity or a right, I see them as a luxury, this isn't some natural resource it's a medical/industrial product, I don't see why it's our responcibility to ensure that everyone liveing in mud huts should be given cures we found, if a group of people is incapable of surviveing in the modern climate, then they will and should die, just as every other organism on the planet has for the last four billion years.

You probably can't tell, but i'm wishing cancer on you as we speak.