Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to re: Without new product

When the small-plane industry lowers blood pressure for millions and annihilates cancer cells without surgery, let me know.
Mary Anne — (archived)

The drug industry is in a position of power. That power is life or death.

That's why R&D in American pharmaceutical firms will never go away as long as there is a breath in the American economy. Everybody -- everybody -- has an interest in making sure it continues.

The argument is not whether new drugs will be developed, or should be paid for. Any product should be paid for. How can they be distributed so that the market for them is not determined solely by who has won the lottery, and yet the drug companies can recoup an appropriate profit to finance their future efforts and pay their employees and stockholders?

Perhaps the drug companies could look into making economies in the advertizing budgets that push unidentified prescription drugs to the public on TV and in magazines every hour of the day, if their profits aren't high enough. Surely doctors can be counted on to prescribe appropriate drugs without their patients' advice based on video of happy people on the beach or cute cartoons of sad little blobs.

Also, drug safety is a legitimate concern of government because it deals with the health and safety of the citizens. It's been a loooong time since snake oil was peddled as legitimate medicine. Let's keep it that way.

The pharmaceutical industry is not in the same class as an industry with a limited clientele and an increasingly expensive fuel.

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