Kelsey Bjarnason wrote:
> [snips]
>
> On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 02:29:22 +0100, Homer wrote:
>
>> You're completely stuck on this idea that the act of simply "spending
>> money" should give someone an intrinsic "right" to do something immoral,
>> like make unsupportable claims of "owning" knowledge. It doesn't.
>
> Sorry, I live in the real world. Here's a notion: exactly how many new
> drugs do you think would be put out each year, if drug companies didn't
> think they'd be able to actually _sell_ the drugs? Approximately zero,
> right?
>
> Silly me, arguing that we should actually expect to pay for such things.
> Oh, and before you run off on some boneheaded side track, allow me to
> point out that *very* few drugs are made of gold or platinum - the pills
> themselves, their actual worth _in materials_ is pennies; what we're
> paying for, by and large, is the *ideas* behind them - the R&D and
> testing and suchlike - which allow us to produce the final product.
>
> But hey, yeah, let's do away entirely with the entire drug industry, who
> needs it? Or do you seriously expect them to keep pouring those millions
> and billions into R&D and testing if, having done so, they're expected to
> hand over the formulae to every third-rate twit who thinks he has some
> sort of "right" to the information?
Yeah I'm sure those people dying here in the UK because the NHS cannot
afford the extortionate costs some of the drug companies are putting on
their product - does a few months supply of the latest drugs need to cost
as much as a house?
Or whole african villages dying out because the company making the drugs
they were buying has been sued out of existence by companies claiming
patent rights then pricing the only drug that's then available so high 1
tablet costs a few months or years wages.
Yeah I'm sure the victims of the drug company greed would agree with you
that the companies are really acting morally and have a right to price a
single tablet higher than a surgical procedure - NOT.
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