US blocks cheap drugs agreement

[Imran Siddiqui]

If the drug companies won't sell their drugs cheap, or their licences, then socialise them and let's get over with it. Health is definitely a field where profiteering is immoral, so let's do away with it.

So that drugs will take 4 times as long to develop and will cost twice as much (which the government will take from you through taxes)? Sorry, don't think so.

Like GP (somewhat) stated, incentives are the reasons for most of the cures we have today. Because people saw they could get money from it!

[Sava]

I don't give a sh!t about the pharmaceutical industry dying. They're all a bunch of greedy f*cking bas3rds (my mom's a VP of a Chicago area clinical lab company so I've got wonderful insight of the industry). You presume that all world development would suffer if the greed-driven industry died. In fact, I bet there would be a renaissance in bio-medical development if the profit-driven restrictions on R&D were made irrelevant by public, socialized medicine.

and on top of that, millions will get the drugs they need to live! That's a tough one, let me think.

[Sava]

Wrong silly boys... socialized medicine = less average cost to the people... get your heads out of your asses and look at Western Europe and Canada. The US would probably have a more efficient system than the rest because I think that the United States has an inherent hard-working attitude that is part of our culture. Eliminate the greed and corruption, and overall costs would decrease across the board. Awww, but the rich conservatives don't want that... and the poor conservatives are too ignorant to admit they're wrong.

[TCO]

Save who let you out of the idiot box?. You were supposed to be holding hands with Faded Glory. If you get bored, help Mommie screw up a chemical company.

[axi]

At least with fighting disease and epidemics, they did a much better job than you did. Quite a few Soviet scientists sacrificed their lives researching the plague epidemics until the managed to beat it with vaccines and in 1928 the disease was extinct from the USSR (where that disease had been domestic). In the 30's, there was an outbreak of the plague in California, among the immigrant population but the authorities concealed the fact.

Btw, most epidemic diseases are fastly gaining ground worldwide. Cholera and typhus have reappeared in Europe after many many years. Not to mention hypatitis. This is IMO the best proof that pharmaceutical companies don't do their job well.

[David Floyd]

If the drug companies won't sell their drugs cheap, or their licences, then socialise them and let's get over with it. Health is definitely a field where profiteering is immoral, so let's do away with it.

Socialization, eh? Yeah, THAT'D be a popular idea in the US

[mactbone]

The more money Pharma companies make, the more money goes toward making new drugs. Sava, you have lost your grip on reality.

Anyways, I'm sure that there were disagreements on both sides on what should be done, this want' a strict charity case. Plus, the US is not in an emergency, meaning the Pharma companies have to agree to this or most people in the US aren't going to be happy abou the deal. If the gov't can essentially steal money from you and give it to another country that's not right. It's one thing to give foreign aid, it's another to take some of your patents and freely distribute them.

I'm also wondering at the facilities that these nations would have to manufacture these generic drugs.

[axi]

We're talking about countries like India, Brazil and South Africa, who are the most eager to produce these drugs.

If most Americans don't want to enforce morality to the pharmaceuticals, they they will have to be dissappointed too. As I said before: what are you going to do, go to war?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by axi
Cholera and typhus have reappeared in Europe after many many years. This is IMO the best proof that pharmaceutical companies don't do their job well.

That says more about the sanitation and hygiene of Europe than it does about pharmaceutical companies.

[Sava]

Originally posted by GP
Save who let you out of the idiot box?. You were supposed to be holding hands with Faded Glory. If you get bored, help Mommie screw up a chemical company.

ahhh insults in the face of your abhorrent sense of wrongness... seriously though, I didn't expect anything more.

[Sava]

Originally posted by MacTBone
The more money Pharma companies make, the more money goes toward making new drugs. Sava, you have lost your grip on reality.

Anyways, I'm sure that there were disagreements on both sides on what should be done, this want' a strict charity case. Plus, the US is not in an emergency, meaning the Pharma companies have to agree to this or most people in the US aren't going to be happy abou the deal. If the gov't can essentially steal money from you and give it to another country that's not right. It's one thing to give foreign aid, it's another to take some of your patents and freely distribute them.

I'm also wondering at the facilities that these nations would have to manufacture these generic drugs.

The more money they make, the more goes to profits. R&D in the pharmaceutical industry is grossly underfunded. The only drugs that get resources are the ones that would be the most profitable... (i.e. Viagra, Allegra, other allergy medications). The medications that get produced are marketed solely to the middle and upper classes. They are for non-life-threatening conditions and uses like preventative allergy and in the case of Viagra, impotence. You need to wake up. Health care should not be a business. You know why? Because only the most profitable consumers get taken care of. As you hypocritical conservatives like to proclaim, you support the right to life. But where is your support for the right to life if there aren't dollars behind it. You should at least be honest and say if it don't make dollars, morals need not apply.

[David Floyd]

Two centuries ago, no man on earth would ever think of throwing away the very life of millions of people, by simply patenting a few drugs.

Maybe, but two centuries ago, they would enslave millions of people, and launch wars that killed thousands (and, if you include WW1, or go back to the 30 Years War, tens of millions), so I don't see your point.

[Sava]

Originally posted by David Floyd


Socialization, eh? Yeah, THAT'D be a popular idea in the US

If it were put to a straight up popular vote and weren't subject to a massive propaganda campaign by capitalist pigs; socialized medicine would be a fact. But America is not a democracy, popular vote doesn't matter. The rest of the country is a lot different than your little world out there in Texas, David.

[David Floyd]

If it were put to a straight up popular vote and weren't subject to a massive propaganda campaign by capitalist pigs;

And instead, were subject to a massive propaganda campaign by socialists, right?

[Sava]

No, and that's the whole thing David. Socialized medicine works, you can put your head in the sand and forget about Western Europe and Canada, but in the end the thing that would sway public opinion is propaganda put out by the right. There need not be any socialist propaganda other that a stating of the facts. But ignorance and conformity is king in the US... whoever puts out the best ad campaign would win.