Intellectual Property And The AIDS Crisis 361
Karl Chang writes: "The New York Times Magazine cover story on AIDS is basically an expose on how the drug companies are trying to keep their profits at the expense of the lives of those in the third-world. Some shocking statistics are included about the spread of the epidemic and the markup on the drugs. Interestingly enough, the claim of patents being needed to finance new research is rebutted with the statistic that two-thirds of the drug companies costs are in marketing and administration; the bulk of their costs aren't in R&D. Read the story."
HIV Meds are expensive as hell, but they work. (Score:2)
In response to the Duesburg-followers - high virus load correlated to very low t-cell count, and vice-versa - you do the math.
In response to the "Gift from God" morons - my wife is a straight, caucasian, _married_, non-addicted, woman. She (we) has been living with HIV for at least 11 years. If this is your god's best shot at wiping people out, he sucks. In a word (or two), "fuck you."
As far as Africa goes, I think they need to get the governments acts together, before distribution of meds will help. Another problem is attitude, as the meds are not a cure, but a therapy to extend life expectancy and increase quality of life. Once you are HIV+ you can infect others, no matter what drugs you take, and a properly informed populace is the best line of defense. Infected men running around rutting like bunnies without any sort of protection (condoms) is probably the biggest vector currently at work in Africa. Not to mention other things like poor sanitation/hygine in Hospitals, and some really wacked out traditions like female circumcision (which, when combined with bunny-rutting men, really can get the virus spread quickly.)
At the bottom line, the Pharma-corps aren't helping matters much when they start focusing too much on the IP and bottom line issues, but I am glad they are doing the research and making the meds. There are systems that can make this work anyway (like socialized medicine) and still the most important factors are information, its distribution and action upon said information.
Interesting, shocking, unsurprising, sickening (Score:2)
Yet what do we have here but corporations, an artificial entity that lives by specific rules, presenting entire _continents_ with this dilemma: pay up, more money than you could _ever_ possibly pay- or die. Die, Africa- Die, India- no hard feelings, it's just a business matter, now DIE! because your continent cannot pay sixty, six hundred, times the cost of producing the medicines that might save it!
Honestly, it is hard to see any way to justify this point of view. In a human, this personality would be seen as sociopathic, dangerous. I would question what _right_ does a corporation have to slay a _continent_ for non-payment of very arbitrary fees? To my mind there is a big difference between this and, say, Viagra. They are welcome (encouraged) to set whatever price they like for the latter, but with the survival of the human race at stake, the species that corporations are _made_ of, it is quite inappropriate to apply the same rules. It's a case of 'tough luck, Merck- we'll call the wonder drug Merck's Golden Savior if you like and you better make what you can from that name recognition, because we are _going_ to rescue as many people as we can from their medical problem, and you're gonna make it at cost, as will everybody else.' That would be social justice.
Failing that, I can only see a prospect of war- like WWII, except that this time, us Americans, WE are the Nazis. WE are the ones sentencing entire continents to death... except that in a very real sense, we have no more power over our legal fictions, our corporations (multinationals all) than does a Brazilian. We cannot stop them by working within the system anymore. When a corporate scientist discovers a permanent cure for AIDS, that cure will be _thrown_ _away_ and covered up so effectively that nobody will ever know, because death is more profitable and cures, you only sell one of... and the decision will be made by various well-insulated corporate drones trained to think only of the corporate bottom line (or be fired for violation of fiduciary duty) who cannot be held personally responsible for their decisions- or so we currently believe.
I daresay it will be a very nasty war, because with all other options lost, the people sentenced to this death may as well turn to terrorist acts- not against the US, but against the corporations which are mobilising governmental military and trade forces as weapons. And given that it will _be_ a war, peacetime law may no longer be adequate. What possible punishment would match up to the sentencing of entire continents to death?
I know this much- I've served on a jury in the USA. Knowing what I know, if I was on a jury passing judgement on a terrorist who had premeditatedly killed a corporate executive who, beyond a reasonable doubt, had made the decision to deny AIDS drugs to a dying _continent_, entire _countries_... I would die myself before I brought a guilty verdict against the terrorist. I would call it self-defense.
So would most of the world... we might begin thinking of them as 'the Allies', and our corporate entities as 'the Axis', to get some idea of how all this really looks to the outside world- whether that is in countries with HALF the population carrying AIDS, or the countries which aren't there yet. And we might begin thinking of our young wealthy libertarian corporate supporters as 'Quislings', while we're at it, for more of a perspective. And there isn't the figurehead there was in WWII, because history doesn't repeat _identically_... you can't show a picture of a corporation, the only thing that will be reviled by history are simple names. Merck. Monsanto. Possibly Microsoft- though it would have to pull off some monumental feats of global information control to rank anywhere near the agriculture and medicine entities currently putting the screws to the rest of the world.
It looks very much like corporations are like a social cancer- legal fictions constructed specifically to bear no responsibility and produce uncontrolled growth with no bearing on the health of the organism. The full impact of this situation only becomes obvious when you look at these pharmaceutical corporations placing their profits ahead of, literally, _humanity_... sticking to the bottom line and rule #1 (get yours) even when faced with emergencies on the scale of _continents_. We lock up humans who react in that manner, but _all_ corporations are programmed to act that way by the laws that create them. It's not good enough. One way or another, the plug's gotta be pulled, and new programming written.
Surprised? (Score:2)
Looks to me like the New York Times is doing a terrific job, in the tradition of the Post breaking the Watergate story and learning more and more about just how nasty that situation really was. In this case, the New York Times appears to be figuring out that US-based multinational corporations may be getting us into a full-scale war against the rest of the world- and that US-based multinational corporations are condemning entire continents to death for inability to pay First World, hugely inflated prices.
Personally, I am proud of them for running this as a cover story- but I believe that, knowing what they know, they felt morally obliged, as I would, to get the word out. It is a desperate situation, and it's no longer acceptable to be disinterested- and taking up a collection to pay Merck $4.50 on 15 cents worth of medication is freaking missing the point! This expose does far more good- though it is only a band-aid.
Yes- he is. (Score:2)
I would love to see some basic societal rules laid down and enforced. If you kill another person, you get put in jail as a menace to society. If you stubbornly assert that killing another person is good (even if you don't yourself do this) you might be committed to an institution, depending on who you choose to say it to, and how stubbornly you stick to the idea. I'd like to see similar consequences apply to those who stubbornly assert that killing millions of people is good- or, to be specific, that the prospering of an imaginary legal fiction is important enough to justify killing millions of people.
Re:Human Life vs. Intellectual Property (Score:2)
Are you stating that a scientist with AIDS would not attempt to save his own life unless he stands to gain a monopoly on the intellectual property?
Are you stating that a person with AIDS and enough money to fund such work would not spend the money that way unless they stood to make the money back with interest?
Are you stating that a friend of these two people would not lift a finger to help them without standing to gain in either intellectual property or monetary wealth?
Increasingly I suspect the best thing we could do is throw out _all_ IP and start over, even though this is hard to even imagine...
Re:Let Us look at this an other way. (Score:2)
I suppose this can be chalked up to capitalist indoctrination, but don't overgeneralise- that is the same as saying that you are obviously a socialist and therefore support totalitarian states such as the Cold War USSR. The two aren't the same thing, and 'capitalist' is overgeneral for what you're reacting to. What the person is illustrating is Chicago School free market libertarian thinking, and that is not really capitalism- it's a sort of fascism, but a _non-specific_ fascism in which the ruler is not appointed or designated, but is simply the most ruthless competitor at any given time. Kind of like 'fascism without a plan'. Chile tried this out for a while (or had it tried on them) and was almost obliterated by it, but the crude simplicity of the concepts still appeal to some.
Re:The holes (Score:2)
If there's a slippery slope it's you who's lost your footing. I'm seeing a situation where, far from simply not giving away loads of free medicine, some people (and I use the term loosely) at drug companies are on the one hand determining the cost of the medication based on rich US 'customers' (read: dying people) and on the other hand are willing to involve the US military and commerce department to _threaten_ poverty-stricken countries attempting to make the medicines _themselves_. We are not talking about failure to supply free medication here, we are talking about a concerted effort to condemn millions to death and _prohibit_ entire countries from saving their people through manufacturing the 'intellectual property' themselves.
It would be so easy to go with compulsory licensing for the duration of the crisis, and that would entirely undercut my argument about the terrorist. If such a country could (even only in absolute crisis) make its own drugs, there's no excuse for violence on the person of corporate executives.
It is only in the situation where countries are being prohibited through military and governmental force from making the medication to address their own intolerable crisis, and prohibited by the acts of a person making that decision, that I'd refuse to convict the terrorist. I feel that any person consciously making the decision to hold a continent at gunpoint, saying 'Drop everything, OFF with the drug production lines, call off your doctors! You get those drugs from US at first world prices or we send in the US army and impose trade sanctions destroying your country!'... given the situation, a person behaving like that is acting like a gangster and is abandoning the right to be treated like a human being. I think people like that should be locked up. If they can't be brought to justice, and someone is willing to sacrifice their own humanity to kill the person who's behaving like that and can't be brought to justice, I for one could not convict.
Hell, we're (the USA) living with a President now who is heartily in favor of taking people who act like gangsters and sociopaths and killing them off. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander- if we're expected to swallow that, why the hell must we behave like gangster-like corporate execs have a right to live? If we're killing off the dangers to society, let's track down some of the corporate execs who decide things like this, and kill them. I'd like to see equal killings: for every black inner city gang lord, let a lawyer-wielding corporate exec behaving like I've described be killed. The latter kind does more damage...
It is just as easy for either kind to be spared such harsh justice. For the gangster- duh, don't pull the trigger. For the exec- if your company appears to be obliging you to take such actions... freaking RESIGN! This is not rocket science, and the company is not God. Act AS IF you are responsible for your actions.
Re:Perhaps we need stronger regulation (Score:2)
Like Prozac and Viagra?
Drug companies are no more "immune" to the economic cycle than anyone else.
Re:'Hype and the AIDS crisis'- Flawed logic... (Score:2)
I can't speak for the situation in Africa, but I have actually lived in several Third World countries in South America, and I can tell you that the problems of corruption and lack of infrastructure are serious concerns when you are tackling a problem of this magnitude. Some of the nicest people I have ever met hailed from the Peruvian town of Huancayo, and yet it is safe to say that their political system is so corrupt, and their infrastructure so under-developed that for all intents and purposes they are living hundreds of years behind the times. Sending supplies to this area either required that you transport the goods yourself, or that you "pay off" any number of people so that they would not be stolen.
I imagine that Africa is worse.
For example, even if the required medicine were to magically appear off of the coast of Africa there is little guarantee that this medicine would be dispersed properly throughout the population, and there is even less chance that the medicine would be used correctly if the instructions were more complicated than "take two of these and call me in the morning." It is much more likely that these medical supplies would become one more pawn in the ever increasing war between the various competing countries and factions.
Besides, no such super drug for AIDS exists. The best we can do now is either abstain from drugs and sex with multiple partners and/or to always use a condom and fresh needles. This is not rocket science. Unfortunately, there are too many people in the world who feel that they should be able to maintain a dangerous lifestyle without consequences. Of course, there are always plenty of truly innocent victims as well. People who either didn't know about how to avoid AIDS or who became infected from their parents or some other method. But that just underscores the importance of education. People should know the facts so that they can choose their lifestyle wisely.
The US drug companies are businesses, and as businesses I would bet that any one of these organizations would love to come up with a cure for AIDS for the simple reason that it would be worth a lot of money. Blaming these companies for the AIDS epidemic in Africa is ridiculous. You might as well blame me for the AIDS epidemic in Africa. I haven't come up with a cure for AIDS either. Heck, I haven't even tried to come up with a cure for AIDS.
Until there is a cure for AIDS the only tool available to us is education. If the individual African decides that his or her lifestyle choices are more important than avoiding the AIDS virus, then there is little that the rest of us can do other than pray for the other innocent victims of this persons choice.
Yes, let's do so (Score:2)
By your logic, the person's need means that you should give away the service.
This is a parasitic ethic and it makes every competent or productive person a slave to anyone with a need. Granted, I don't like the idea of people dieing because they don't have the means to save themselves. Unfortunately we are talking about the oldest problem on earth. It could be the case that the drug companies are total jerks, but they did the research. I would really like it if they would give it away, but that is their perogative.
Just a personal note, in case someone would think that I don't personally care about AIDS and those who suffer from it. I'm currently raising funds for AIDS research through the AIDS Ride [aidsride.org]. I think that private donations toward a cure is the way to go. If you feel strongly on the matter, I suggest you endorse and support organizations that are seeking a cure without a profit motive. Sorry for the personal plug, but I want to curtail the person who says that I don't give a damn... I actually do, but I don't expect drug companies to care in the same way I do.
Re:COMMUNISM WOULD SOLVE THIS!!! (Score:2)
The absolute WORST thing about communism, though, is that it's boring. REALLY boring.
Wrong (Score:2)
Get over it, I say. You can do all that stuff right now!
Re:More background on aids in africa (Score:2)
More background on aids in africa (Score:3)
That said, even though the Post tries very hard not to have an anti-drug-company agenda, if you can walk away from reading all those articles without feeling that the drug companies are not culpable for the deaths of tens of millions of people... well, you are more of a cynic than I can imagine. What is happening in Africa is a terrifying combination of the Black Plague and the Holocaust, and after reading the Post series, there can be little doubt that our government and our medical industry is at the very least willing to stand by and watch millions die, and at worst directly responsible for those deaths. Yes, they need to do R&D, and yes, they should have the right to profit for their work. But when their stated policy is to profit via low-volume sales at high prices, instead of having the same ridiculous profits via high-volume sales at low prices, it is hard not to believe that the hands of their CEOs are not drenched in blood to an extent that makes tobacco CEOs look like saints.
Anyway, enough of that rant- go read the Post articles, and make the judgement for yourself.
~luge
Re:AIDS is a FRAUD and is BAD SCIENCE (Score:2)
D'uh!
As for the companies spending only one third of their capital on research. Maybe it would suprise some of you folks to know that the average High-Tech corporation only spends 10% to 15% on their R&D. So a 33% spending rate on R&D is amazingly high. It's truly astounding what you can do with just a little more information..
Sheesh!
(Now I'm going to go lite some candles before the lites go out do to lack of power around here...where is that Generator switch?)
Re:Bullshit. (Score:2)
Communism, dictatorship, and despotism dominate Africa. That's why it remains such a poor continent. That's also why Africa doesn't have drug companies developing their own AIDS drugs.
Latin America has finally rejected communism and despotism, and is improving rapidly (as long as spoiled american children don't protest away free trade). Dicussion of Catholocism's morals vs. scarcity of condoms aside, AIDS is no where as bad in Latin America compared to Africa.
What to do: (Score:2)
They are too concerned with making themselves look like a big man with their miserable little 'country' than to actually see that a leader of a country is no better than the least man in that country and no matter what else the stupid punk leader guy says or does, if he doesn't focus on improving the quality of life for the average human the leader is responsible, then the rest of the world will still regard the leader as a punk wannabe, or just not even know about them.
These poor near-savages (Not because the are savages, but because the environment these little suck-dictators have created around them gives them nothing to build on or even realize that they should build on...) are stuck in stagnation do to the pointless greedyness of these weird-looking, bad-dressing, dumbshits.
If we (or another country, or the UN) are really concern with the humanitarian utopia/propaganda that they are always spouting off, then the solution is to go kill/imprison/render-irrelevant (remove from 'power' somehow) these pockmarked shithead horrible 'leader' guys and put in the basis for a real system where everyone has a chance to better themselves. Create the infrastructure - communication, education, production, etc. Don't hand out any welfare type things, except maybe some healthcare for the first 3 to 5 years. Simply make it so they have a chance. If someone doesn't want to make the effort, don't make the mistakes that the US has made of creating a class of lazy do-nothings. If the lazy ones don't want to do anything, kick them out in the jungle with the zebras and hippos and see if they then learn the lesson of 'make an effort or die'. Survival of the fittest - if you don't wanna survive, you don't. Evolution in action.
I feel sorry for the people locked into living nearly like animals because their leaders have sucked all the resources, money, knowledge, basic building blocks away from them and indirectly brainwashed them into being unable to realize that there is more to life than just eaking out an existence like an animal.
But how to influence the do-haves on our side of the fence to do huge, controversial things like this for the common good of all?? That's where I feel locked into a similar non-knowledge situation of how to be a good, persuasive, charismatic 'do-er of good things'...
Cluelessness (Score:2)
This is a well known truth in the industry, it's not as if the shareholders of all these companies woke up one day and said "gee, I want to reduce my earnings by 2/3rds by spending money needlessly". If you think you can do R&D and produce a product for less, do it. I dare you.
Re:Non-sequitur (Score:2)
What you are in essence trying to create is a mini-planned economy. Unfortunately, government is no more capable of producing medical products than it is microchips.
Re:Cluelessness (Score:2)
With the current IP system, we've made a great deal of progress and trillions of dollars have been spent towards R&D. Although you might argue, as ridiculous as that would be, that we would experience even more without it, there is NO significant evidence that points to this, quite the opposite in fact.
Re:Non-sequitur (Score:2)
Corporations do, as a matter of fact, focus on the long term quite often. The drug industry regularly makes investments that are 10, 20, 30+ years off. Perhaps you can argue that the nature of corporate management today, having to focus on short term excessively, is a force against long term development. However, it's simply not fundamental to the corporation. There is no rule in finance that says "the short term is all the matters". Rather, there are principles such as the time value of money, cost of capital, etc. These, however, don't say the long term is worth less, they simply discount future revenues based on how far out in the future they are. Put simply, this means that if a company has a choice between 20m today or 25m in 5 years, they'll most likely choose 20m. But if there is an AIDS vaccine that has an expected value of 1 billion dollars in 10 years versus other allocations that would net a mere 20m using the same amount of a capital, then you can be quite confident that the company will invest, if they have the resources.
Re:Cluelessness (Score:2)
This catchup factor that you describe is rarely significant. If we're talking about software, that's about 5 seconds. Medicine, brazil managed to do it with next to nothing in the space of a month or two. A book can essentially be photocopied. An idea, simply passed around. Etc etc etc. What's more, if the innovator is small or has less resources, he could actually be at a disadvantage in terms of implimentation. If we're talking about a manufacturable product, there is a significant amount of resources and expertise involved. Knowing the ins and outs of the R&D on that particular product may pale in competitive comparison to owning 500 million dollars in manufacturing facilities, staff, cash, etc.
Even if we accept your position that the innovator will make 1/4 of what they would have made, who is to say that that is enough, let alone better than the full amount. For all you know, the full amount tends to be absolutely necessary. From a financial point of view, the correlation between risk and expected return is VERY sensitive. Cutting return by 10% can easily mean that the innovation will simply never happen. I have personally been involved with a number of such companies/innovators.
There difference though is that the innovator only gets a monopoly on his innovation. If the competitors are copying the innovation, they're freeriding and not contributing to the advancement of technology. If the competitors wish to compete in the market place, they can do their OWN innovation. The difference is that with these market monopolies, we're talking about the ENDS, not the MEANS. You're mostly incorrectly assuming that there is only one means to an end. Even with the relatively strong IP of today, innovators often find tough competion on their product a mere year or two after they patent it, well before the patent actually expires.
In fact, I dare you to quantify this and prove to me that patent expiration is more often the limiting factor, not alternative MEANS. I can speak with confidence for a number of well known industries and show you just how true this is.
Re:Non-sequitur (Score:2)
Well it's a well known fact in the industry that the vast majority of new drugs take have a time horizon greater than 10 years. Long term in the drug industry is considered to be 20 and 30 years out and does happen at the larger drug companies like Merck, Glaxo, etc. Also there are other industries such as the rirline industry, logging, communication systems, etc where this takes place. Or here's one you should know, the wine industry. Where do you think those 40+ year old wine bottles come from? Or how about loans?
I think you have a lot to learn about business.
Re:Cluelessness (Score:2)
Re:Cluelessness (Score:2)
After all, criminals have used their rights to privacy to hide evidence of their crimes, but that doesn't mean the arguments for privacy are fundamentally less valid.
Re:Cluelessness (Score:2)
Even this introductory book of yours (btw, you go to drexel?), acknowledges that patents solve a real problem. It does not say that patents should not exist. Quite the contrary, because it suggests that there is an optimal length for patent life, it implies very strongly that patents are more optimal. For example,
This book, however, being an introductory level book, oversimplifies the matter. The innovator must also be compensated for taking risk and for the lost opportunity cost/cost of capital. For instance, if I spend 20m dollars developing a product, a return of 20 million real dollars (accounting for inflation and like measures) is not enough. Because I could have plowed that money into a much less risky and low tech investment that yields 10% a year over the course of 10 years. The only way a rational and self-centered investor will invest, is if that risky investment offers a net present expected value significantly greater than the low tech investment. Hint: More than 51m dollars. Likewise, if a particular investment merely returns its cost of development in real dollars, when that particular class of innovation is highly risky, say 9 in 10 fail, the only way that you'll encourage investment is to offer expected returns well in excess of 10x the development costs.
Re:Non-sequitur (Score:2)
MS is a monopoly. They have little incentive to innovate, unless they can somehow expand their market. The software industry however has extremely short lifespans and is difficult to predict. It's a poor example.
I already told you. Merck, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, AT&T (remember Bell Labs?), etc. I am not a walking bag of links. You can do your own research.
No, but he also didn't ever make a practical invention that people could use. He consumed little capital and hence didn't incur risk. There is a world of difference between theoretical research for learning and applied research for the development of useful things. While it is certainly true that theoretical research has ultimately benefited today's innovations, this does not make the case for IP any weaker. The most you can say is that some things that have benefited us did not require IP. However, they also generally didn't require tremendous resources and IP is primarily about efficient allocation of resources.
Re:Cluelessness (Score:2)
That being said, I agree with you that appealing to authority can be dangerous when it leads to intellectual apathy. I really don't feel that I'm doing that though. I'm giving a relatively well reasoned argument for it [about as good as can be expected on this sort of forum], that explains why this person's over-simplified free market/libertarian view is dangerous.
Re:Cluelessness (Score:2)
Speaking of penicilin, there is A LOT more to the story. (It can even be used to help illustrate my point.) Contrary to popular belief, penicillin was not an instant cure. Flemming essentially published his discovery once to the academic community in 1929, but it hardly interested anyone. Flemming worked a little bit on it, and then basically abandoned it. It wasn't until 1938 (9 years later) that it was picked up again by a group of researchers in England. Over the period of a couple years, they reproduced Flemmings experiments, worked on it a little more, then began injecting it into mice, then humans. The results were good, but not so good that it was an instant success. It wasn't until 1941 when the ball really began to roll. It was still very difficult and expensive to produce. It took a couple years, millions of dollars, and the involvement of industry to actually make it viable.
The point is that it is very rare for chance and mere curiosity to create usable innovation, there is generally a lot of work that happens in between. If you want to come up with a good counter-example, then show me where millions of dollars worth of resources, countless hours, risk, etc was incurred by individuals to produce a single product out of goodness of their hearts. There may be a few, but they are quite rare, especially in comparison. Can you honestly tell me who you expect to produce the next significantly faster CPU? Intel (or some other company in the semiconductor industry) or a bunch of volunteers? That may be a bit extreme of an example given the capital intensiveness, but think over all the industries and pursuits that directly effect your life. By and large, it's industry through IP, not the loaner individual (differs from an individual that starts a company, of course), a non-profit, etc.
Re:The cluelessness is astronomical (Score:2)
Re:Non-sequitur (Score:2)
So if I patent an automatic nose picking machine that does not work does that make me rich? No. The only way that happens is if my innovation is useful and productive. Merck's patent is only as good as what they innovate. If competitors work around their patents, as they often do, that patent then becomes a worthless monopoly.
Where are you getting these numbers from? Anyways, India doesn't invent drugs, they copy them. If they are manufacturing their drugs for less (which you would have a hard time knowing), it could be for any number of reasons. Such as, cheap labor, lack of quality control, lack of regulation, etc. Anyways, the manufacturing costs tend to be a very small component of the sales cost from a legitimate manufacturer. An illegal generic, on the other hand, simply has manufacuring costs to worry about, so that's where they'll spend their money.
Maybe so, maybe not. But this doesn't mean IP isn't unnecessary for that final, most expensive, step or two.
I don't consider the vast majority of Open Source development to be innovation, but rather free loading. I don't have time to enumerate the typical stuff that is proffered, but perhaps if you offer what you consider to be significant innovation, i'll take them on individually when I get a chance.
Re:Cluelessness (Score:2)
Now perhaps it might still be arguable that "some" innovation can still occur without IP, but that depends on how "innovation" is defined and it's still rather nominal in any event. I regard it as largely extraneous to the underlying question. I may have stated my case a little too strongly, but, by and large, it's true.
Later
Re:that wasn't a libertarian view (Score:2)
First, it's not that most people care for the corporation itself. It's just that ignoring the corporation's legally established IP rights is short sighted and, in the long run, can hurt everyone.
Second, the medicine simply would not exist without that corporation, let alone the western world. It's not as if the Brazillions would be better off if the corporation did not exist.
Third, this experiment in Brazil is rare and noteworthy. If I remember correctly, it cost them 442 million to even RIP off the drug makers and provide these medications for ONE year. If the drug companies were to provide similar services to all in need, it'd be billions of dollars and it'd probably put them out of business. Even that alone is well beyond what most poor countries can raise. Not to mention the intangible good will of its citizens, which is often not found in others.
Fourth, where were you when Brazil needed medicine? Just how much of your income have YOU sacrified for the good of the world? For all the ranting and raving about the "evil" corporation, the corporation is really just an agent that represents us as humans. If it suddenly becomes better than us, it's no longer an investment, it's a charity. So I reiterate, how much have you given to charity? Nothing? A few dollars? 5% of your income? 10%? I bet you still have plenty of excess material goods. Then don't act so high and mighty.
Re:Cluelessness (Score:2)
It cost Brazil more than 440 million dollars just to rip off the drug companies in the year 2000. What's more, that figure doesn't even include the unquantifiable support from the community. Most places in the world where this is a problem have neither the training, the infrastructure, nor the resources that Brazil has. It may be a "poor" country, but it's not spineless like so many of these other countries.
Furthermore, there is a risk. There was a popular bill just recently in the United States that proposed "reimporting" drugs that US drug companies make and export to Canada, Mexico, etc for significantly lower prices. What the proponents fail to realize is that the US is THE market that they depend on to make a profit; the drug companies sell to other nations just barely above cost because it can help _supplement_ their earnings. The problem is that people, like all too many on slashdot, will and have jumped to conclusions. (Hello, Al Gore? Nader?)
Finally, many drug companies have offered free and/or greatly reduced price drugs to South Africa and others. But these nations have either rejected it, ignored it, tried and failed, etc. There is another side to this story...the NYT author doesn't tell you how many have failed. The countries that are most ravaged by diseases like AIDS are, almost by definition, ravaged by other problems as well. AIDS continues to spread in these countries, due to no fault of the drug companies. I'd argue at least that until a country can begin to stem infection (rather basic) they don't have a chance with these very expensive and complex treatments for existing patients.
I'd also like to add that people can do just as much, if not more, than the drug companies can do. Can the drug companies do more to help? Sure, but it's hypocritical for 99% of the people on slashdot to complain about it when they themselves do next to nothing. Companies realistically can't do a great deal more until both people here agree to do more and the countries themselves (probably most importantly) get their acts together.
Re:Cluelessness (Score:2)
Although the drug industry certainly has returned some healthy profits, it's also had its share of failures. The bottom line is that if you were to map it out with all other investments and securities, its return is very much in line with its riskiness. This means that they really don't have fat that can be trimed that wouldn't result in an exodus of shareholders into less risky ventures and/or ventures of the same risk that simply return more. Translation: Cutting what you regard as excess profits in your casual examination can actually hurt the consumer.
As for Intel's patents, they can be every bit as broad. You confuse the age of the semiconductor industry with a difference in patents. Intel has patents on any number of things, not just an exact design, but manufacturing technology, R&D, chemical compounds, chip design, etc.
As for charity, I'm certain there is more you can do. How new is that computer of yours? Your car? Your apartment? Your stereo? I find it difficult to believe that you live a lifestyle below most Americans (which is well above the "average" world wide) Anyways, I'm sure you know the truth, even if you won't admit it at this moment.
Re: Lung Cancer and Emphysema Vaccine or cure? (Score:2)
Huh? I don't get where you're going with this.
Are you being facetious or not? I don't disagree with much of this, though I'd take a different tone. i.e., if a country can't feed itself or do the relatively basic task of stopping mass infection then they're certainly not capable of the requirements of a massive AIDS medication program for existing victims. I'd argue that, given the kinds of resources Brazil had to spend (440m in one year) to even appropriate these patents, we'd be better spending that kind of money towards getting those governments and society's in order (if at all possible). Things like BASIC sanitation, transportation, medication, education, infrastructure, etc would do far more to improve their welfare than a failed medication program.
Uh, until most recently, only a few developed Western nations supported IP. While the West had experienced massive innovation, they stagnated. If they were lucky, they were able to copy us. Witness India, China, Russia, etc. [Hint: This is not for skilled or intelligent people.]. Meanwhile, in recent years, as IP is starting to gain international support, we are seeing actual spending towards legitimate R&D in those same countries for the first time ever. Witness India's generic drug companies of today and others. In other words, I'd argue that, this experiment has been done on both sides, in a thousands different ways, by hundreds of different countries.
I'd argue it's the other way around. Except for in the case of outstanding trademarks, popular domains like slashdot have not been stolen. If this were true intellectual anarchy, assuming the internet infrastructure would even be a possibility, slashdot would be up for grabs to the strongest or wealthiest or dirtiest bidder.
This would have the effect of killing, or at least being a force against, research where ever the government might decide to appropriate the patent. By definition, if that one time fee is less than the earnings the innovator can make now, that is less incentive to take risk. Also, if that payment is just as great, the consumer pays just as much on the aggregate, only it'd show up in their taxes instead. If you truely believe the government is vastly superior at R&D, without being burdened by the likes of marketing and administration (heh), then certainly the two can operate side by side; government would presumably out innovate the commercial companies. [Though I don't believe this for a moment]
I do have concerns about this kind of regulation. Although I'm not sure about the endangered species act itself, the courts have historically awarded damages to the land owner in similar cases where it can be proven that government decisions/regulation hurt the value of the land after it was purchased, on the grounds that it constitutes a taking.
Re:Good post-modernists (Score:2)
As a good post-modernist...
If I may be slightly off-topic, it's interestng that you state where you are coming from. I've recently been reading about a system called Spiral Dynamics, that sets out different cultural world views or vMemes. There are about 8 of them, each colour coded, so as not to imply that any one is 'better' than any other.
Individual people are at a particular vMeme, which forms their basic value system.
I'd say that most people arguing here are really showing us mainly an Orange vMeme vs. Green vMeme argument (with a sprinkling of Blue). Actually the argument cannot be resolved, because the basic value system used by each is just so different.
The Orange is about competition, winners and losers, and individual pursuit of achievement. The Green is about degrees of sensitivity and caring, relating and listening. Orange: the more you achieve, the better you are. Green: the more you are sensitive, the better you are.
I'm probably mis-representing the idea, but I get the feeling that the Orange's are the ones saying, "hey, it's business, and besides, those Africans are way too backward to even know what to DO with this stuff". Meanwhile the Greens are shouting, "Man, it's our one World, one planet. Those are human beings, just like you and me. We are killers and murderers if we don't help them!"
Needless to say, because the two sides, oh, not to mention the Blues, "they deserve it for their voodoo witch belief" (you know who you are), so yes, the two or three factions are just in totally different value systems. The gulf between them is wider than they think, because their own values are so obviously 'right', how could anyone think differently?
But to get back to the parent post, PoMo is pretty Green.
Re:blame the people too (Score:5)
This isn't a case of "capitalists and the corporate republic and patents are killing millions in Africa". This is a case of Africans and African beliefs killing themselves through denial and stigmatizations.
The article is about one problem. And you're talking about another. The article is talking about the physical needs (drugs and money). You're talking about the cultural problem (awareness, education, stigma, rejection).
This is fine. But I take issue with your use of the word 'blame'. You see, by introducing this word, you're creating a third problem. Because when you blame someone, there's a subtle implication:
"Its' their own fucking fault and they deserve all they fucking get for their own fucking stupid idocy and don't come fucking pleading to us for fucking help."
Blame doesn't get you anywhere. Actually it just gets in the way. Because there's a difference between action/consequences and blame.
When I blame somebody, I'm avoiding looking at my own respons-ability. That's the ability to respond. If we start blaming companies or witch doctors, we're forgetting our ability to respond to the situation.
Otherwise, drug companies will just blame the witch doctors, while the third world governments blame capitalist greed. While actually a concerted effort by all parties will get everybody a lot further more quickly.
I'm sure cootch knows this anyway -- I'm just saying that blame is not going to help.
When I'm looking to blame, I'm looking for how, "it's nothing to do with me." But when I'm looking for how I'm responsable, I'm looking for what I can do. How can the drug companies respond. How can the governments respond. How can the village witch doctors respond. How can South African citizens respond. How can Kenyan teachers respond. How can American citizens respond. But don't blame.
Re:Let Us look at this an other way. (Score:2)
This is very much incorrect. if you walk into an emergency room and say "I need to see a doctor" it doesn't matter how much money it costs to treat you, there in no hospital in the US that can legally turn you away. Doctors and hospitals can and will be fucked to all hell by the DA (and lawsuits from surviving relatives) if they refuse treatment to anyone.
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Re:Let Us look at this an other way. (Score:4)
because restaurants don't have legally enforced monopolies on food.
If you could buy AIDS medicines for $2 at Wendy's, I doubt people would be getting upset at the drug companies. They'd be raising money to buy it from Wendy's at wholesale...
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Re:What do we expect? (Score:2)
Fine. So let those companies sell those drugs at huge markups -- in countries that can afford to pay for them. An American insurance company, or a Canadian provincial health authority, could pay $20,000/year (or whatever) to supply one person with anti-AIDS drugs. But 99% of people with AIDS in the Third World don't have access to that kind of money. If they die slow painful deaths, the drug companies still don't get anything.
The drug companies may not care about this: perhaps they're afraid of cheap anti-AIDS drugs being smuggled back into the First World, or perhaps they're trying to set Third World prices to maximize profit rather than to maximize the number of people cured. But governments, which are supposed to consider the welfare of their population as a whole, certainly should.
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Re:These are drug companies, not drug charities (Score:2)
I like how Pfizer sidesteps the entire issue of life-saving drugs. The article celebrates the salutory effects of generics but Pfizer of course continues to lobby for the extension and strengthening of patent laws and against generic drugs.
As the NYT article points out, drug companies will use any patent they can to prevent the genericizing of drugs (the example given was that one company got a patent on the coating drug for the pill of an AIDS drug that wasn't protected by patent in Thailand). And generic drugs, which as the Pfizer article effectively admits are the only downward price pressure on drugs, are prevented from entering the US marketplace for at least 20 years, which can mean a lot of lives.
Re:Human Life vs. Intellectual Property (Score:3)
A good response, but if you read the article, you'd see that there are mechanisms by which the government can "buy out" a company's IP rights. In fact, there are multiple mechanisms, including compulsory licensing or the more drastic seizing of the rights (for a price, of course).
The law actually has the flexibility. The fault lies in the execution of it; for a time the Clinton administration was guilty of pandering only to the pharma industry's interests, but they did slowly and halfheartedly.
Misapplication and misuse of IP laws is certainly not new; there have been patent lawyers and companies working to exploit the law for profit rather than for societal benefit since the laws began. But as the US laws become the world laws, the exploitation is spreading across the globe.
You can bet what tack the Bush administration will take. Hooray for pharma stock!
Of the 1st-world countries, it is the US that by far needs to take responsibility on this issue.
Bullshit. (Score:5)
The thrust of the article wasn't that companies shouldn't be allowed to turn a profit; it was that they shouldn't be allowed to turn an obscene profit. As people have repeatedly pointed out, drug companies are not charging high prices just to cover R&D. Most of their profits go into advertising and paying their executives.
As a good post-modernist, I try to avoid taking moral stands; neither the article nor most of the Slashdot readership has called the companies 'evil'. However, it's difficult not to find something wrong with people, governments, and companies placing a higher priority on milking profit than saving millions upon millions of lives.
In a purely free market, there wouldn't be any IP protection; it's an artificial governmental restraint. Intellectual property law is supposed to be in service of society; and I hope that most of society doesn't believe that allowing companies to charge $21000 a year for drugs that cost $700, drugs which mean the difference between a slow, painful, debilitating death, and a healthy, productive life, is in the service of society.
Don't take a moral stand; just decide whether you'd rather the continent of Africa to collapse into complete anarchy, and much of east Asia, and perhaps Latin America too (oh no! where will we get our cheap processors and jeans?).
There are many other entities at fault in this equation. India, for example, is the number one producer of generic copycat drugs, but refuses to provide free AIDS treatment to its teeming masses. The only reason that I am attacking the drug companies so vociferously is that fools like you defend them.
Re:Let Us look at this an other way. (Score:2)
Half the voices here seem to be saying otherwise.
In the modern political dialog, "free market" is just a politically correct code phrase for "look out for #1, fuck everybody else". If you die because you lost the economic game, well, that's what you get for losing. Don't ask me for help; I'll never make it to the top of the heap if I stop to help you up instead of stepping on you.
I mean, seriously... are we going to sit back and let millions of people die miserable deaths just so we can get that 43 profit on our stocks this quarter?
No wonder you have riots every time the WTO holds a conference.
--
Re:Profiteering? (Score:2)
For more details on the magnitude of Bill Gates' magnanimity, see my other post [slashdot.org] on the topic.
And yes, I detect the sarcasm. Please see the other post anyway.
--
Re:Bill Gates as philanthropist (Score:3)
Hmmm. He's worth $72,273,900,000 [webho.com] right now, and his $100,000,000 is spread out over the next five years, so his yearly donation of $20,000,000 is worth a whopping 0.02767% of his net worth.
An ordinary millionaire would have to give a budget-busting $276.73 per year to keep pace. Someone worth $100,000 would have to hurt themselves to the tune of $27.67 per year -- that's a decent steak dinner, I'm telling you. A working highschooler could keep up by throwing a quarter in the hat once a year.
"Capitalism overcoming the shortcomings of capitalism", indeed!
All hail to Saint Bill of Borg! He steals from the rich -- or at least limits himself to the working class and above -- and throws pocket change to the poor -- at least when the media are watching.
Sorry, Bill, but this is only going to buy the love of people without a pocket calculator.
--
Re:Bill Gates as philanthropist (Score:3)
I know I should let this ride, but I just can't resist...
Let's see. He's worth $72G now, and if you add back the $10G that he has reportedly given away, you get $82G, of which that $10G is... 12%. Your family doctor probably gives away a bigger share. Lots of middle class families give away a tithe just on general principles. If you compare on the basis of disposable fortune rather than gross, the attempts to portray Gates as a philanthropist look absolutely ridiculous.
This is not an impressive sum for the world's richest man.
And then you look at the $10G. How much is still sitting in the coffers of his self-aggrandizing Gates Foundation? How much was given away with strings attached? How much was given away as software, and reckoned at the sticker price rather than the almost-nothing that it actually costs him personally?
How much was given away before he started having legal and PR problems? How much did he give away without a press release to tell the world about it? How often do his disciples invoke his donations as proof that he's a nice guy, never mind whatever he did to get the money in the first place?
> You are a jealous hypocrite.
Jealous? No. (See below.)
Hypocite? You're making a lot of assumptions about what I'm worth and where it goes.
> Be honest and admit you hate Bill Gates because he's more successful than you.
Actually, I don't consider him successful at all, because I'm one of those freaks who doesn't believe that you "win" by dying with the most toys. Sure, he's got piles of cash and herds of brown-nosers, but I don't happen to want either one. I've got enough to eat and live under a roof and drive a car that doesn't break down too often, and enough left over for a few toys. Whenever I discover that I've got much more than that, I figure I've been spending too much time making a living and not enough time living a life, so I switch gears for a while. What makes you suppose everyone wants to be like him?
Is he handsome? Has he got a winning personality? Lots of friends? Do girls fawn on him? Has he got musical talent? Does he speak lots of languages? Does he write novels or poetry? Paint? Hack on a project for fun? Does he do lots of cool stuff that other people don't?
Sorry, but I'll save my jealousy for more deserving guys.
> Short of donating his entire fortune to charity, there's nothing he could possibly do to make you like him.
I probably wouldn't like him even then, though I would probably respect him for that particular act. Maybe even be jealous, if I found that I couldn't do the same thing.
> Here's my response: learn basic economics. The economy is not a zero-sum game.
Was that supposed to be relevant to some point you were trying to make?
--
Brazil Poor? (Score:2)
Utter Hogwash.
Brazil, on an international scale is a RICH country. It has the eighth largest economy in the world, just behind Mainland China and just ahead of Canada.
The rest of the article is equally distorted - for example the claims that the pharmaceutical industry spends little on R&D at 33% of sales. THAT IS FIFTEEN TIMES THE AVERAGE IN US INDUSTRIES. The fact is that no other industry spends more on R&D than Pharma.
Then it goes on to talk about the AIDS epidemic in Africa as if it were the fault of the US Pharmaceutical companies. Baloney. If you examine the various causes of AIDS in Africa one rapidly is forced to the conclusion that they failures to control the epidemic in some areas (but not others) have nothing to do with the availability of treatments. Treatments have NOTHING to do with the spread of the disease, only how long it takes for those infected to die. It has been long known to epidemiologists that the problems with AIDS in Africa are mostly of a cultural nature. This is why AIDS is a minor problem in poor Islamic nations in the north, and a major problem in richer southern nations.
The is the worst kind of distorted journalism one can imagine because it twists the facts to the prejudices of the author. It is sickening to me to see a publication like the NYT print such a piece. It is even more sickening to me to see the readers of slashdot swallow this hook, line and sinker.
Re:Capatalism (Score:2)
Administration and marketting for a pharmaceutical company includes such activities as financial management, manufacturing operations and supplying technical information to the doctors whom you are selling you product to.
Feel free to eliminate it, and see what you get.
Re:not so high profit margin but (Score:2)
Given the fact that the profit margin is no higher than that of a washing machine, how can you say that these are unfair prices?
Re:Perhaps we need stronger regulation (Score:3)
That is not at all a high profit margin.
Coca-Cola's is around 28%; Microsoft's is 38.9%. Intel is 24.5%. General Electric, an old line commodity product company is 16.5%.
Investment analysts like the Motley Fool recommend that you do not invest in a company unless their margin is at least 10% as otherwise they will not have the ability to fund future expansion, or weather an economic recession.
Re:Drug Companies (Score:2)
Eh, this is a stinky subject for debate.
Drug Companies (Score:4)
Think ahead people, you're living in today and it's going to destroy your future.
Re:Why third-world drugs are expensive now. (Score:2)
Of course, if you're not a consumer sheep, or you happen to live in the SF Bay Area, most of the hush-puppies you erroneously perceive as HolyManna from The Gh0d of KapitalOnHigh don't do you much good because you're paying a fortune for a cramped apartment and probably don't see much of it anyway.
Are you sure? You haven't seen a pure application of either one, and you probably won't. Why? Remember, the Cold War was primarily about economic protectionism. If we had any number of socialist countries selling into the export market on a cost-recovery basis, with shorter workweeks and better wages, the fat cat industrialists would have seen Daddy's fortunes disappear overnight or seen risks to their lives. Contrary to what you may have read, this is the real "Domino Effect" that scared an entire generation of the elite. This is why this country has spent trillions of dollars of what is rightfully your money to fight this "scourge" in order to preserve useless moneyed middlemen (see also the DeCSS decision).Maybe you're happy being a tool. I'm not.
-jhp
Let Us look at this an other way. (Score:4)
He has the IP in that he knows how to help you.
He has the PP in his kit.
He has a right to charge what he wants for his these things.
I think even the most strident freemarket supporter would say that to withhold medical care is wrong. Is it realy so different when the IP is a drug and the crash victom is from the third world?
Re:Think about long-term implications (Score:2)
The consistent abuse done to patents and copyright will guarantee that that is the eventual outcome. Tension will build up as society sees no legitimacy in the existence anymore, and revokes most if not all forms of IP, with the result that the rampant greed shown in the abuse will destroy even the useful and semi-legitimate forms of IP.
Research will continue, but government funded. The good scientists arent in it for the money, but rather the prestige and enjoyment of research.
Re:Drug Companies (Score:2)
Face it, the drug companies arent needed. Get rid of them all and we'll still have the research. We'll just have a lot of unemployed IP lawyers, administrators and marketing people.
Re:Drug Companies (Score:2)
Add to that the slight difference in motivations; pharmaceutical companies do not want a cure, they want something they can sell again and again. While the government motivation is to find a cure so they dont have to pay for it again and again.
Blame and Smallpox (Score:2)
Wow, are all of you a bunch of idiots. At least the several of you that are tossing the word blame around. If you want to blame someone or something for this crisis, blame yourselves.
What ever happened to the altruistic UN organization that wiped smallpox off of the face of the planet? What happened to that kind of worldwide effort to eliminate a killer disease and embetter all of humanity? What happened to us?
This AIDS/HIV thing is out of hand. It must be stopped like smallpox was stopped. Granted, the solution is more expensive, but it must be done anyway.
And you types with the blame game, drop it. That is like blaming Jews for living in Germany in 1939. That is like blaming the Chinese for living in China in 1932.
Re:Blame and Smallpox (Score:2)
bringing drugs to the market. (Score:2)
so say in 1991 research began on 10 drugs. at best only two of them exsist right now. i'm sure that pharmaceutical companies to spend a bit on administration. this would be because of all the regulatory loops they have to jump through.
research isn't just a monkey with a labcoat, some flasks and some chemicals. the capital investment required is enormous, this doesnt even include clinical trials, dealing with the fda, etc.
to tell people (or orgainizaions representing people like mutual funds), you have to give us all of your money for the good of the world is rediculous. especially considering the governments of these countries are corrupted past the point of caring for their own people.
hell if research is so cheap, why dont all of the third world countries scrape together $50 or however much it takes to do aids research, setup a lab, and start doing research on their own? because in reality it isnt that cheap.
third world countries are poor, i will not deny that. on many levels the united states is pretty pathetic (we consume 90% of the worlds resources and have less than 10% of its population) i will agree with that also. some people here work very hard though, and they invest their money so they can retire when they are too old to work. to tell them that they have to give up their life saveings for the good of humanity is a streach for me.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
Re:More background on aids in africa (Score:2)
i hate to play the devils advocate here, but high volumes arent always possible. proteins and enzymes are good examples of this. while we can try to comeup with a strain of ecoli that will produce some protein with a high selectivity (read 2-5% of cell mass), its not always possible. when new therapeutics are found they are normally in small quantities:
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
Re:Bill Gates as philanthropist (Score:3)
Bill Gates has donated in excess of $10 billion to charity. In both relative and absolute terms, that's extremely generous. Have you donated more than 10% of your net worth to charity? I doubt it. Have you donated more than $10,000,000,000 to charity? Not a chance. You are a jealous hypocrite. Bill Gates is not.
Be honest and admit you hate Bill Gates because he's more successful than you. Short of donating his entire fortune to charity, there's nothing he could possibly do to make you like him.
The same goes for all those people out there for bashing pharmaceutical companies for being greedy and spending only 33% of their income on R&D (a far greater percentage than any other industry).
What really pisses me off is all you people who scream about others being greedy when you haven't done anything to help others.
I know what you're going to say... Here's my response: learn basic economics. The economy is not a zero-sum game.
Re:Non-sequitur (Score:2)
Repeating the argument in different words doesn't improve it. This is still a non-sequitur. There is simply no linkage between the two.
So what if it costs $1B to perform R&D for product A, and it costs $2B to manufacture and sell it. Does this mean that the incentive of a patent monopoly was diminished therefor? Would it cost any less to manufacture and sell it if there were no monopoly? Would the R&D funds still be there because it were so expensive to make?
Does the fact that $1B is less than $2B sufficient to assure that the $1B would be there anyway to support the research if no one could "own it?" If no one could own it, would the economics for the $2B manufacture and sale be unaffected?
Come on. One thing has nothing to do with the other.
Re:Non-sequitur (Score:2)
This is an age-old argument, and a difficult one that should not be made qualitatively -- because this cuts both ways. Health care costs money, and some people can't afford it. So nationalize it, what the heck? But if we nationalize health care, perhaps folks will go to law school instead of medical school, and health care will suffer. Will more people or fewer people die because of the change? Would more people benefit from the advances in health care in the former scenario, or more people benefit from the advances in availability in health care in the latter? Will there, in fact be advances in the former case, and increased availability in the latter.
These are all hard questions, and ones we shouldn't screw around about with back of the envelope guesses. If that Pharms go belly-up because we took away their property without compensation, would more people die for the lack of the drugs yet to come? I don't know the answer to this question -- I do agree, however, that it is an important one to ask.
Non-sequitur (Score:3)
However good this may sound, this "argument" is a non-sequitur. What has one (cost of R&D/marketing) thing to do with the other (benefits of the patent system)? Who has ever claimed that a monopoly on the use, sale or marketing of a product would somehow impact upon the costs of manufacturing, advertising and distribution of the same? Still further, the study hardly segregated marketing of patent-related goods against costs of marketing of non-patent-related goods, so the result is itself unuseful.
But for the R&D, there would be no drugs. But for the drugs, there would be nothing to market. No incentive to R&D, no drugs.
If there were drugs, by luck or otherwise, the lack of a monopoly would not justify the investment in marketing, for a generic free-rider would simply sell and distribute their goods at much reduced costs and therefore, for greater margins. No sales, no incentive to R&D or marketing, no drugs.
Unsurprisingly, margins on patented products *ARE* higher than margins on unpatented products. Valuations of pharmaceudical companies and price/equity *ARE* higher for those holding patent technologies than for those who are not.
There may well be argument to be made to support the conclusion, but this one certainly is not. The relative expenses of a company's marketing verses R&D hardly neither supports nor defeats arguments about the virtue of the patent system.
This is not to say unconcionable things have not happened in this business -- only that the argument singled out here isn't part of the best case against either the patent system or that business.
Re:Why third-world drugs are expensive now. (Score:2)
Sure do. The space race was all about military power. Build a rocket that can put a marble into orbit and you've built a rocket that can put a nuclear device on washington.
Cuba has many benefits, and it has prospered since the 1950's
Yeah, thats why all the cars there are from the 1950's and why so many of it's citizens risk their lives clinging to flotsam to cross the florida straits bound for Miami.
The holes (Score:2)
1) The corporations are killing the continent of africa.
The corporations gave AIDS to the population of africa? nope. Africans get AIDS from eachother because of risky behavior; behavior that might be curtailed by education. There are still no drugs to prevent AIDS therefore the corporations even through inaction are not killing anyone.
2) By withholding AIDS drugs they are killing people.
AIDS is a terminal desease. AIDS drugs only prolong the inevitable. The end result regardless of what drugs are administered is the same.
This is the lamest argument. ugh. Clearly lack of any drug does not cause AIDS. If anything is peripherally related to the spread of AIDS to epidemic proportion it's lack of education. AIDS is still incurable therefore no amount of 'free drugs' is going to solve the problem. It could even be argued that availability of AIDS drugs in uneducated populations increases the spread of the AIDS epidemic as those infected live longer and therefore have more opprotunity to spread the desease to others.
If it's okay for a terrorist to kill an executive because that executive chose not to give away drugs is a very slippery slope. That argument taken far enough and a homeless person who killed you for your food home or car would be 'in the right' because you were 'too greedy' to give it to him. When you've got some one/thing making arbitrary desisions on who should be forced to give to who then you end up with a totalitarian society where you may be stripped of your property by some arbitrary decision that it be for the 'greater good of society'.
-- Greg
Re:The holes (Score:2)
Re:Why third-world drugs are expensive now. (Score:2)
The most important tenant of capitalism is property rights (the right to own or create property, do with it as you like, and dispose or trade it as you like); the most important tenant of communism is the complete lack of property rights (anything you own or create is the property of the state and you are allowed to use it only by the grace of the state). Of course in a society where there are no property rights it's dubious if there will be any other rights. After all if the state has absolute authority over all property they have absolute authority over all the people who produce or use that property as well.
Of course communist governments have to be authoritarian, no one in their right mind would surrender their property and slave away at state-run businesses they used to own without being threatened with violence or death!
I saw the link to castro's speech. Cuba is such a workers' paradise that it's population regularly risks their lives clinging to flotsam to cross the florida straits for Miami. Cuba used to be a well-off country with a booming tourist trade; castro managed to drive the whole country into poverty with his communist government. That's communism in action!
Of course every comparison I've seen of communism/socialism vs. capitalism is unfair because inevitably socialism 'in theory' is compared to capitalism 'in practice'. If you compared both of them 'in theory' capitalism wins, both 'in practice' capitalism wins again.
-- Greg
Re:Why third-world drugs are expensive now. (Score:2)
If the government came in and killed you then seized your property and redistributed it to your neighbors would it 'make it better' if it was because your neighbors voted to have it done because they were jealous of your possesions? A 'democracy' can be as tirranical as any other form of government if there are no provisions for immutable individual rights. Right of property is one of these rights, after all if you can't own food shelter or water you cannot even provide for your own survival.
capitalism shifts wealth to the wealthy
In a capitalist society each person is free to exchange the goods they own with another person for the goods that person owns. Each pary is doing it of his own free will. The reason you consistantly see the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is because some people value items they can use to create other items of more value (i.e. production machinery, computers, stocks/bonds ) while most other people trade their possesions for items that do little to create further value (i.e. beers, big-screen TV sets, cocane, lottery tickets).
I had the same benefit of the majority of other americans; I left high school with a diploma and literally nothing else. After highschool my money and went into computers, oreilly books, and keeping up with the computer/networking industry. Now I'm pretty well off, better off then a large number of americans.. But those americans chose to put their money into bars, TV's, new cars, and shopping sprees. So in a capitalist society that is why you see an 'inequality of wealth', the ultimate freedom is the freedom of stupidity, and it's the one that carries the most conequences.
All rights are tied directly to responsibilities, the more free a society the larger the responsibility each member shoulders. Not responsibility to others or society as a whole, but the responsiblity of accepting the concequences of your actions. Any form of society that removes responsibility (i.e. responsiblity to make a living for yourself in a free market) also removes rights (i.e. right to own and control property), it's inevitable! To guarantee a living for those who cannot find one on their own you must seize property from those who have sucessfully earned a living.
The problem you are alluding to is imperialism, the exploitation of a weak country by a strong country through use of force, rather than capitalism, which is the free exchange of property by willing property owners. Any government is capable of imperialism regardless of their economic system; IMHO a perfect example is Russia annexing eastern europe after WWII.
-- Greg
Re:Why third-world drugs are expensive now. (Score:3)
After this comment and re-reading the slashdot article by michael I figured I'd go and look into this allegation that 66% of drug companies' money goes to sales and administrative. For Meric (NYSE:MRK) the majority of their money goes into materials and production; about three times what goes into sales & administration, and nearly as much as S&A goes into R&D. Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) spends 37% on sales and administrative (still less than half) and spends as much on R&D and manufacturing combined. These are large companies with already developed product lines (i.e. they've done the research now they are in sales mode to recoup earlier R&D costs).
Smaller companies without established product lines, such as Biogen (NASDAQ:BGEN) spend close to 66% on R&D.
'Sales & Administrative' is sort of a catch-all category anyway. Most people are familiar with what their workplace does.. How many people actually make the product the business sells. How many people at a software company are programmers? The programmers need a support staff of HR people, administative assistants, an IS department, some executives, a few marketing guys, someone to manage facilitites, a receptionist... point is that at any given business the majority of the people don't contribute directly to the product but are important nonetheless. All these people show up as 'sales and administrative' on an income statement.
Finally saying that cost would be cut in half if 'executives
But of course when we're talking about an idealogical concept such as socialism who want's to really go into details.. The devil is always in the details.
What you are describing is called "speculation" to be kind, or "gambling" to be honest.
All technological advancement is based on risk (or call it speculation or gambling). You invest a billion dollars to find a cure for AIDS. After that billion is gone you may have a cure or you may not. There's no such thing as 'sure thing' research.
If we had any number of socialist countries selling into the export market on a cost-recovery basis, with shorter workweeks and better wages, the fat cat industrialists would have seen Daddy's fortunes disappear overnight or seen risks to their lives.
The socialist countries had shorter work weeks and better wages? It comes as a suprise to me that people in soviet-russia and china make more than americans. In fact this is just plain untrue. I do believe we've all but completely opened our market to communist china and it's billions of workers. I thank them for their cheap trinkets, but I've yet to see China turn into a luxurious worker's paradise or seen the downfall of the american capitalist.
-- Greg
Why third-world drugs are expensive now. (Score:4)
Americans were unhappy about this situation; they went so far as to get congress ready to pass laws encouraging re-importation of drugs allowing americans to buy drugs at third-world prices.
This is why the prices for drugs have gone up in the third world; Even when the drug companies were trying to be charitable to the less fortunate all they got was a PITA from americans who wanted something for nothing too.
Re-writing the laws now to allow anyone to take the drug companies' intelectual property is just going to make expensive experimental research much more risky for businesses, and therefore that sort of research that might cure AIDS or cancer will be curtailed drastically. No business in their right mind is going to spend billions to research a cure only to have somebody down the street copy it a week within it's invention and sell it at cost-of-manufacture while the first drug company cannot charge enough to recoup their R&D costs.
Next usual argument against drug companies is that they return so much back to their investors in profit and thats why the price of drugs is so high. Let me dispel that one this way. For every company that spends billions and ends up with a hard-on or bald-spot pill resulting in big profits for stockholders there are ten companies who each spent billions and ended up with zilch. Of course the 'payout' has to be a good amount if the chances of getting anything back at all are so low.
Any of you arguing the merits of socialism vs. capitalism just need to look at the achevements of the west vs. the east over the 50 years of the cold war. Sure both sides sent people to space and built sizable armies, which side benefited their common-man the most? The west had microwaves, TV's, cars, houses, ready amounts of food & goods, and appliances. The east had almost no non-military innovation (that they didn't steal from the west); the people lived with constant shortages, small cramped apartments with the minimum of comforts, and poor working conditions. I think I'll choose capitalism over socialism any day.
-- Greg
Re:Perhaps we need stronger regulation (Score:2)
Drug companies are barely affected at all by recessions, because almost all drugs aren't a luxury, they're a necessity.
Re:I see (Score:2)
That does seem to be one of the basic tenets of Communism.
/.
Re:What do we expect? (Score:2)
This is why we need things like the "Kings Ransom" that lead to decent modern clocks. Have the goverment pay an insane amount of cash to the person who finds a cure. That would make sure that a cure didn't stay hidden for long. I would propse an inital billion dollar prize for a cure for aids, cure for the common cold, and other things like low cost solar cells.
Perhaps we need stronger regulation (Score:2)
I understand the need for everyone to make a living and I don't believe is government run medical programs. I do believe in capitilism but with carefull regulation, especially of necessities. Those include energy, water, food, education, communications, insurence, and medical science (drugs, healthcare, etc.). There are certain things people must purchase. This demand pushes prices up. Competition keeps them down. In the case of drugs, patents block competition and give the patent holder incredible price control. They can charge immense amounts pointing to development costs and marketing. They point to the insurence companies to eat the cost.
They of course, claim that new drugs are still experimentle and not worthy of coverage. My uncle pays thousands of dollars a month for multiple sclerosis treatments not covered by insurence. These are not fantasy miracle cure drugs; they are drugs with proven effectivness that have been approved by the FDA. He is a medical doctor and knows first hand how the combination of high drug costs and uncontrolled insurence companies causes his patients to die of very treatable ailments. He is fighting to avoid the very same thing himself and knows that if he was not wealthy he would be in much worse shape, perhaps not even alive.
What can be done? I believe that patents on treatments for life threatening diseases should be shortened. Allowing generic versions of these drugs to come into existance would lower prices. I believe that medical insurence companies should be forced to pay for more treatments prescribed by doctors. An insurence adjuster should not be able to determine how long I stay in the hospital if I get sick; only a doctory should. Goverments at the local, national, and international level have the power to make things right but have stood idly by while millions die. Something must be done about it. They must protect their own people.
capitalists,corporate republic, and patents ... (Score:2)
You speak of people refusing to get treatment. How can they get treatment they can't afford? Drug companies make billions of dollars in profit; don't cry for them. They should have much tighter regulation, especially for treatments of life threatening diseases. What about AIDS transmitted through blood transfusion? From mother to baby? From cheating husband or wife to an innocent spouse? Is it their fault as well?
You seem to have no idea how lucky you are to healthy and well off in this world. Much of this work can not afford so many of the things we take for granted. How can you sit and type at your expensive computer through your expensive internet access and think that it is their fault? Do you really think that all the things you take for granted are there through your hard work? If you had been born in certain parts of the world like Africa and India, you would have a high chance of being born with AIDS and into poverty. You were lucky, damn lucky as are all of use who live in rich countries. We need to be thankful and understand that we have a responsiblity to help those that have not been as fortunate as us.
Re:your links (Score:2)
Even if it was done, you would still have the problem of how expensive treatment is. Once educated about the disease and how it works and how not to spread it, why should an HIV positive person care? They are going to die because they can't get the treatment they need. Their behavior isn't right, but a hopeless person sometimes loses some of their humanity.
I agree with you that the people have some bad attitudes with respect to AIDS but the US has had those too. In the US there is still a stigma attached to AIDS, still an association with promiscuous homosexual men, and it is still a problem. This doesn't explain your "blame the people" rant. Because they have silly ideas about condoms does not mean they deserve to die. Sure, they contracted a disease they could have prevented. They are still human; they just made a mistake. They still deserve medicine at a fair price. Have you ever had unproteced sex when you shouldn't have? Better yet, have you ever stayed out in the sun too long? Do you smoke or know someone who does? Do these people deserve to die? Should we stop treating lung cancer because smokers didn't read the warning? I think that you didn't read one part of your links:
"They are human beings like you and me...", Deputy President Thabo Mbeki from "South African government urges nation to fight AIDS pandemic" [cnn.com] at CNN. It isn't anti-capitalistic to want fair prices for necessities. I guess you feel that $10,000-$15,000 per year is a fair amount to pay for medicine that you need to survive. Is it more important for drug companies to make billions than for people to have access to the medicine they need to live?
So education is needed. But we must treat those that have the disease as well. No matter how much education you have some people are going to get the disease and they need to be treated. I also feel that these survivors will help make AIDS and HIV less of a stigma. Today HIV means AIDS which means death. It could be a treatable illness. The treatability of AIDs told but survivors as done more to erase the stigma of AIDS than almost anything else.
The poor are all too often pushed out of getting proper health care, in the states and abroad. You can judge a society by how it handles the less fortunate members of it. Look at the poor and look at the sick and you can find a measure of the compassion of the society. We must do what we can to help those that can't help themselves. In this case, this means getting affordable AIDS treatments to places being ravaged by it.
not so high profit margin but (Score:2)
Re:blame the people too (Score:2)
Um, no, IP is specifically anti-capitalist. Having the government enforce and artifical "ownership" on ideas is anti-capitalist. We tolerate it, ostensibly only for the "incentive" to create it provides. However, I think millions of dying AIDs victims far, far, far outways any ridiculous incentive to create we might be affording the drug companies. Sure, African traditions may be helping the spread of the disease, but I, myself, am not so entirely insensitive and self-serving as to think that because this is the case we should not help at all. The chickens come home to roost eventually.
Re:blame the people too (Score:2)
I would also like to think that for one fucking second we might actually care about the wellfare of fellow human beings (whatever their skin color, or language, or "crazy" custom), because they are simply human also. It always has to be about preventing something bad from happening to ourselves. I'll tell you something bad that is happening: millions of people are dying. Is that not enough? It should be.
Re:Let Us look at this an other way. (Score:2)
It depends. If someone is going to die unless they get a bandaid, then a hospital should bite the bullet and give them a free bandaid. If someone needs more expensive treatment, a hostpital isn't obligated, nor should it be, to pay to save someone's life. Many people get medical treatment that they can't afford because they either have medical insurance, or their government provides a similar service. If the third world governments are unwilling to pay for the medical procedures of their citizens, why is it up to a first world corporation to do so? We don't blame restaurants for not giving free food to the starving masses, why do you blame drug companies for not giving free medicine to the diseased masses?
Re:Let Us look at this an other way. (Score:2)
blame the people too (Score:4)
but do not just blame the drug companies for the extent that AIDS is attacking Africa. Blame their governments for not spending money on AIDS awareness. Blame the tribal leaders and hell, the men of the cities and tribes for not wearing a condom because they feel strongly that it makes them less of a man. And blame the communities that stigmatize the people that have AIDS and are so afraid to get treatment, let alone let anyone else know, that is causing a greater spread of the disease.
This isn't a case of "capitalists and the corporate republic and patents are killing millions in Africa". This is a case of Africans and African beliefs killing themselves through denial and stigmatizations. It's just that the drug companies aren't helping the matter all that much. But I don't see this as a huge problems since the majority of the people in Africa that have contracted the disease refuse to admit it and refuse to get treatment.
here's some links:
link 1 [cnn.com]
link 2 [cnn.com]
link 3 [cnn.com]
Re:blame the people too (Score:3)
Re:What do we expect? (Score:3)
The main problem with the medical / biotech industry right now is, that they have realized that a cure / vaccine is a BAD thing. They can make much more money by only selling medical products that you have to take the rest of your life to survive.
They are getting worse than the drug dealer selling crack to kids in school.
It take two hands to strangle (Score:3)
The blame syndrome is part of how the Nazi's managed to keep their killing machine running. Each person was responsible for only one stage of the process. Someone would open the door. Another person would run the ventilation machine. The guards simply escorted people from place to place. Someone else, entirely, was responsible for clearing the bodies out afterwards. Various other people did the paperwork, but weren't physically involved in the actuall killing.
Who among them was responsible for the deaths? Any one of them could say that if somebody else had refused to do their part that the killing would have stopped. A call to take responsibility is a call to say this part is mine to control. You may want to call on others to do their part, as well, but your actions are what you control directly.
Drug companies are oriented to maximize their profits. They lobby various governments to change the laws to allow even greater profits, and then blame the government when the changed laws lead to excesses. We need to hold the people to account -- each for their own stage. It's fine to say that there are cultural problems in various nations (not like there were none here in North America!). Just don't use it as an excuse to take anybody else off the hook.
`ø,,ø!
Cheap Processors (Score:3)
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
This is where the right to ip should end (Score:3)
It seems to me that the drug companies that are not supplying medications to third world aids victims have forgotten why exactly our society has given them property rights over information: To further the sciences, for the benefit of humanity.
Profiteering? (Score:3)
Now we all know how honest and altruistic large companies are.
Heck, even Bill Gates has recently donated 100 million dollars to aids research. The obvious arguement is that we should not criticise them for the good they do. Bill Gates has obviously been a benefactor of the computer community, and so we should not criticise him for possible errors. He has done so much good.
That statement will obviously send people screaming out of the room. ;-)
The real question is the question of the devils bargin: How much do we excuse in the way of possible errors or abuse because of the possible benefit?
an example from another area of life: a very elderly elderly person is placed into a nursing home. Someone is named as the guardian. the idea is to self off property to help make the remaining years comfortable, because they are beloved family. And the argument is made to loot the property for personal gain instead of helping this person. This is something that happens, I have seen an interesting varient of this.
How much should you be able to profit from the mis-fortune of others?
I have no problem with the meeting of costs, and even some small profit to help a little with future development. Sadly once in the coffers, the bean counter types take cover, and will disperse the funds according to other principles
So how often should we shoot the messenger? Even the infamous Evil Overlord's List [eviloverlord.com] has the famous rule:
"32.I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by."
Re:What do we expect? (Score:4)
That is bullshit, and I wager it's not a small amount of our money. I'm sick of the government stealing my money and giving it to corporations.
--
Go brazil! (Score:5)
Your poor country is suffering from plague, your family is dying, and a strange organization is a far away land states that you do not have the right to cheaply produce the medication your family needs to survive, because said organization spent the money to develop this, and you cannot afford to buy it from them.
So then through capitalist ethics, you say oh well, dont buy the drugs (since you can't) watch your family and countrymen die, and capitalism remains intact so that the betterment of humanity may continue.
...or you can die on your feet, and maybe the corporation will cave in, and you just might live. That is what you learn from Brazil.
Human Life vs. Intellectual Property (Score:3)
What we need are more flexible intellectual property laws. We need to find a better way of balancing the interests of humanity with the interests of the individual. Our old, stiff IP laws are just not keeping up with the dynamic modern world.
People who are infected with AIDS should be able to get medicine at the cost of manufacturing the medicine, at most, if only because those drugs reduce contagion and help prevent spread of the disease. It is in the best interest of humanity to contain the worst epidemic since the Bubonic Plague.
However, drug companies need to be assured that they can recoup their investments, and should be able to make a healthy profit. We need to keep motivating them to do new research in productive areas of exploration. That's also in the best interest of humanity.
The real problem is that there is no mechanism for balancing the two interests. In the United States, the result of this imbalance is that huge corporations make millions of dollars on intellectual property, recouping far, far more than their investment. Look at Microsoft. They are pulling in more money than their actual contribution to society should justify. But businesses need the software to survive, so they pay the outrageously high fees.
However, in a country without any means of protecting intellectual property, nobody would make the initial investment. The current laws, based on expiration of intellectual property rights after a period of time, are on the right track but are too inflexible. For instance, software should go into the public domain faster than it currently does due to the rate of change in technology. Also, we need to establish a mechanism by which the government can "buy out" a company's IP rights and put them into the public domain. AIDS drugs would be a prime target for this.
Re:Let Us look at this an other way. (Score:3)
Because that only works when you are in immediate danger. If someone walked into an emergency room while dying of kidney failure, the doctors would be obligated to do what they could to save them (which doesn't, at that juncture, include a kidney transplant; there isn't time to find a donor, etc).
For that matter, there usually is some sort of state hospital where you can go in and get medical care without paying for it - or, at least, where they give you a payment plan (give us $20 a month for the next 25 years) and you ignore the bills - at least, no state hospital I've heard of is ever going to go to a collection agency to make you pay them.
Cyclopatra
"We can't all, and some of us don't." -- Eeyore
We've all seen this before. (Score:3)
The Disease that was ravaging the world: The Black Shakes?
The company that was more interested in the profits from treating the disease than in actually curing it: PharmaKom?
And the AI that wanted to release the cure?
Once again, Life Imitates Art.
Hype and the AIDS crisis (Score:4)
It's amazing to me how much time people are willing to spend hyping this or that supposed AIDS problem, and how little time people are willing to spend on providing quality information about AIDS. It's also amazing to me the willful blindness most people have about this disease.
The assertion that drug companies are putting their profits ahead of lives in Africa is ludicrous. Pumping out enough AIDS/HIV medications to treat all of the HIV+ people in Africa and shipping it there at cost (without regard to marketing or promotion) would not stop the spread of the disease, nor would it save a significant number of lives. In the US, with a massive medical infrastructure, it is difficult to support the claim that these medications save any lives either. The idea that things would work even this well on a continent with problems of basic distribution and very little infrastructure (not to mention armed revolution) is silly.
The implication is that there is some pill that you take that keeps AIDS at bay indefinitely, and this just isn't the case. A treatment regimen for HIV involves a mixture of pills that have to be taken multiple times a day in a very specific fashion (with food, without food, different times of day, etc.), some of which require special treatment (like refrigeration). Religiously following this regimen may leave an individual with little to no measurable virus, and may slow the destruction of that person's immune system, but it will definitely bring major lifestyle impacts including the very real risk of major side effects which can be more difficult to live with than active HIV (not to mention more deadly). Following the regimen less religiously brings the very real danger of medication resistant virus taking over.
Throwing HIV medications into Africa, under current conditions, would do little to nothing for the masses of HIV+ people there -- those who have a stable enough situation that they can preserve the medications properly are few.
When people start talking about the realities of HIV tests and that they don't reliably show infection for six to twelve months after exposure, which means that having unprotected sex with someone after a few months puts you at risk regardless of how much you trust that person, then we'll have something available which can save lives.
Right on, Brother! (Score:4)
Re:blame the people too (Score:3)