[aldo_14]

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.

So says the man in the ivory tower.......

[AlphaOne]

Oki i must say that i'm absolutely disgusted about some of the posts over here. Are you even listening to what you are saing??

Yeah why should you care if the CIA funded terorists factions and God knows what other warlords for various reasons. The result of such actions well you have ciil war break out for ummmm like 10 or 20 years. The country economi colapses the it has several years in arow of the most severe drought ever seen then people start ding of starvation and deseases because the country is broke and cant even afor penicile let alone other drugs. Now why should you care.

Then again if you want to go to the profit side and say well its not your problem if people die because they cant aford medicibne and that they deserve to die because of that then i' go around and say this the USA desrve to get its WTC towers knoked down because may just maybe someone had a good finacial reason to suport the terrorist's. Oh well you cant actualy blame me for saing this beacuse as some of the people here stated its all about profit.

And if killing a few hundred american people brings profit one way or another then I say lets do it more often. Hell if people actualy should be left to die because they cant aford medicine then I say nuke the USA major cities if it profits you. Why should we care if people die as long as the steel industry and concrete manufacturing indutry etc have a huge amount of profit be it from the USa or other places in the world.

Its thinking like this that has gotten america into a lot of trouble and will continue to.

Look I mai be a bit hard or even out right stupid with these statenments but i just got fedup with thinking like this. Oh and no I don not in any way agree with terorism. Hope i made mi self clear enough so that I wont be considered some crazy ass dude.

[Shadow0000]

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.

So, Bobbau is rich ?, or is just an innocent coincidence ?

[aldo_14]

By third world standards, we're all rich.

[redmenace]

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.

A. Do not try to pass emotion off as reason.

B. Companies don't deny anyone anything. They can buy the drugs if they can afford them. That is not the same as someone saying that I will deny you this for some completely arbitrary and unfair reason.

C. I know what it is like to have a loved one in pain and I know the cost of prescription drugs. And if I were to come across a loved one unable to pay, well they a sad thing. But doesn't for one iota, change my opinion about prescription drugs pricing. These companies have property and economic rights as well as their shareholders. They can do as they please with the said property. The simple justification for their existence is the thought of what would or would not be availiable for AIDS or cancer patients or other serious diseases.

D. Giving them drugs would ultimatly cut into their profits. Where is the motivation for the consumer to scrimp and save to prolong their life when you can just say whoh is me. I can't afford it. These companies have ethical obligations to their stock holders to look out for their best interests. And you might say well what about the ethical responcibilities they have toward the people. I say you can't serve two masters. And because of what would happen without R+D, justifies the support and pursuit of profit.

E. I am, for the record, an inhuman monster

F. The world is inherently unfair, get used to it.

G. Drug Companies are hardly the reason Africa is the ses pool that it is. UN, arogant countries (US INCLUDED AND ALL OF EUROPE), 1700s & 1800s colonization, war, human nature, slavery; these are the things that are the reason that poor childs parents are dead and so will he expire.

G. I typically don't make anti-abortion arguments based on life is sacred but on a question of what should be considered a person and that the constitution doesn't provide any broad right to privacy but a set of explicit privacy rights such as protection against illegal search and seazure. I also have made arguments comparing the thought process of calling an unborn fetus to the Nazi's thought process that made in their minds Jews inhuman. Or how japenese scientists and doctors, when experimenting on GIs and people from Manchuria, youst to refer to their subjects as wood. Basically these are some of the arguments I use. BUT, I shy away from the 'life is sacred' speal because it is a week argument in and of its self.

[aldo_14]

So what profit value is put on a human life in, say, Brazil or Thailand then (countries where these drugs simply aren't sold/bought due to the sheer cost)?

Also, don't governments have an ethical obligation to the health of their people in general rather than big corporations?  I know the US is richer than the aformenentioned 2 countries, but even then you have vast crippling bills for basic healthcare.

How much does it cost to manufacture these drugs, too.  How much would the company lose, if anything, by slashing prices and simply selling more at a reduced profit margin?

Perhaps most importantly; is medicine a science performed for profit, or a for the good of humanity?

[redmenace]

Not sure what you are asking in your first question.

Governments have an obligation to provide for the general welfare. This doesn't mean that the gov't looks after the specific welfare. I take general welfare to mean something that threatens the nation as a whole like bubonic plague or small pox or bird flu. Something that is general. Governments have an obligation to enforce the law. But the Gov't is not favoring any one person or corporation but enforce the patent laws that allow for and encourage R+D.

But no one is ever forced to seek medical treatment. Now if a person was billed for something without consent and was forced to pay it by the Gov't that would, accoring to economic freedom, be wrong.

Well a equilibrium point is never reached because there are no other firms competing thus it is a monopolistic. However, I do support reduction of time for drug patents to expire.

Science can preserve and destroy. It is our choice how we use it. But it is not wholey devoted to one thing. But, it is through the existence of search of profit that humanity is blessed. Without a motivation and drive to perform scientific exploration into pharmecuticals, what would there be? But to the point, science is only a methodology.

[aldo_14]

But, what is & what should be more important - a US drug company making oodles of cash, or a few thousand people in another country living rather than dying?

I understand that research is pricey.  But I don't see why science has become a business and closed market when it flies in the face of centuries of human development to do so.

[Bobboau]

those people were going to die even if a drug company hadn't developed a treatment for there problem.

by american standards I am actualy quite poor, I don't make enough to live on my own, I barely make enough to keep my car running.

and like I said, I must be evil.

[aldo_14]

those people were going to die even if a drug company hadn't developed a treatment for there problem.

by american standards I am actualy quite poor, I don't make enough to live on my own, I barely make enough to keep my car running.

and like I said, I must be evil.

So, what, it's ok to stand idly by when you have a treatment?

[Mars]

Oh look, that man's being carried downstream by the river, oh well, he'd be screwed anyway if I wasn't here, but I really need to get to that job interview, I'm almost late.

Granted it's not a perfect metaphore, but at the moment it seems kind of close. (judging by the amount of sleep I've had it probably makes no sense either)

[Rictor]

Ironically enough, a poor and diesesed nations has a much brighter future than first world countries? Why? Demographics. They'll simply outbreed us and so push their way to the top. And while wealth can be generated relatively rapidly, and a country can be lifted out of poverty within a few decades, you can't double your population within ten, twenty or even fifty years in a democratic, prosperous nation. The poorer they are, the more kids they have. And even if most of those kids die at infancy, they still have far higher birth rates than the first world.

Working under the assumption that the poor will get richer over time unti they are eventually on par (per capita) with the West, which is indeed happening, it will be he with the most people who comes out on top. And most of the world's population is living in Asia, followed by Africa. If you want to secure the long-term power of you country, make it poor. When it's poor, people breed like rabbits. When it's rich, people have more choices in their lifestyle, they break from traditions etc, and they have less kids. So the poor countries will eventually get rich, while even if the West manages to somehow recover it's population loss will eventually simply be outnumbered.

[Colonol Dekker]

Overbreeding without the underlying financial infrastucture would be economic suicide though in my opinion...

[Sarafan]

Ironically enough, a poor and diesesed nations has a much brighter future than first world countries? Why? Demographics. They'll simply outbreed us and so push their way to the top. And while wealth can be generated relatively rapidly, and a country can be lifted out of poverty within a few decades, you can't double your population within ten, twenty or even fifty years in a democratic, prosperous nation. The poorer they are, the more kids they have. And even if most of those kids die at infancy, they still have far higher birth rates than the first world.

Working under the assumption that the poor will get richer over time unti they are eventually on par (per capita) with the West, which is indeed happening, it will be he with the most people who comes out on top. And most of the world's population is living in Asia, followed by Africa. If you want to secure the long-term power of you country, make it poor. When it's poor, people breed like rabbits. When it's rich, people have more choices in their lifestyle, they break from traditions etc, and they have less kids. So the poor countries will eventually get rich, while even if the West manages to somehow recover it's population loss will eventually simply be outnumbered.

That's by far one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen, you really think that's what would happen? By your view, my country should be the world's biggest superpower since we have a couple hundreds years history of poverty. What really happens is that the rich get more richer and the poor even poorer.

Overbreeding without the underlying financial infrastucture would be economic suicide though in my opinion...

I agree.

[Rictor]

Money can come and go relatively quickly. Demographics is a much more stable source of power. If you haven't noticed, all the 3rd countries are getting richer. And by historical standards pretty damn quickly too. 50 years ago, China was where Africa is today, and look at them now.It won't take hundreds or thousands of years to build up their wealth, it will take decades. Assuming that everyone reaches some sort of economic parity within the next 100 years, more people=more money.

The West, including all of Europe, North America, Australia and Russia barely has over a billion people. India alone has more. China has more. Africa has more. As soon as they lose their disproportionate economic, politcal and military advantage, the West is screwed. The other thing to remember is that Asia, Africa and South America all have growing population, while the West can barely maintain current levels. Why? Isn't it logical that the more money people have, the more means they have to support a larger family and will therefore breed more? In theory yes, in pratice no. The poorer you are, the more you breed. What else can account for Africa's booming population, despite its poverty?

[Sarafan]

Far from it, all these countries are getting richer, I agree, but the main problem is that the wealth is extremely polarized. In Brazil, 1% of the population gains more than 50% of the rest of the people. Every elite of the world will try to maintain this same status and the problem is that they will be able to. Unless a major social change happens, a country like Brazil will never become a good country to live in even if its rich.

[Kosh]

50 years ago, China was where Africa is today, and look at them now.It won't take hundreds or thousands of years to build up their wealth, it will take decades. Assuming that everyone reaches some sort of economic parity within the next 100 years, more people=more money.

China is getting richer because it has had reasonably good governance over the last 20 years. Africa has had nothing but bad governance since independance and I don't see that changing anytime soon.


But sooner or later, the attitude of "It's not our problem that these people are dieing" will come back to haunt the US. It's only a matter of time before what you do onto others will be done onto yourself.

[Mars]

Now that's just creepy, you realise that a significant proportion of the people who think it is our problem are from the US? I don't want people hating me just cause I live on the same turd pile as a bunch of idiots.

[redmenace]

To answer aldo's thought, giving it away at cost would lower people's motivation to try and pay a premium price. Also mass production and mass distrobution of cutting edge drugs have many risks. Could you imagine the lawsuits is a firm slipped up with a new cancer drug? The price still has to remain high because they need to pay their scientists well. These firms attract the best and brightest among chemists and doctors. The freemarket must be respected.

And to answer you about the point of building of what others have done, well these companies still contribut themselves to human knowledge by furthering their knowledge of body chemistry etc. Yes it is still years before information and technology can be disseminated. Also these drugs will eventually be made availiable through public domain. Yes between now and then people will die. But how many will be saved in the future? (so much as long as the US Gov doesn't extend the patent which has happened.)

I do not object to companies making distrobution deals with Africa though. it is a good thing.

[aldo_14]

To answer aldo's thought, giving it away at cost would lower people's motivation to try and pay a premium price. Also mass production and mass distrobution of cutting edge drugs have many risks. Could you imagine the lawsuits is a firm slipped up with a new cancer drug? The price still has to remain high because they need to pay their scientists well. These firms attract the best and brightest among chemists and doctors. The freemarket must be respected.

And to answer you about the point of building of what others have done, well these companies still contribut themselves to human knowledge by furthering their knowledge of body chemistry etc. Yes it is still years before information and technology can be disseminated. Also these drugs will eventually be made availiable through public domain. Yes between now and then people will die. But how many will be saved in the future? (so much as long as the US Gov doesn't extend the patent which has happened.)

I do not object to companies making distrobution deals with Africa though. it is a good thing.

But how does any of this affect generic manufacturing in third world economies? 

The free market isn't particularly respected as is - just look how, for example - grain export dumping can kill of agricultural economies in places like Africa - it tends to just equate to a licence to bully for richer nations.