November 06, 2010
Does the pharmaceutical industry prevent the media from discussing alternatives to the patent system for financing drug research? That would seem to be the case, since an NYT article on the failure of the industry to pursue the development of new antibiotics never once mentioned alternatives to relying on the current patent system.
It does not plan to offer government subsidies in addition to patent monopolies or proposals to make these monopolies even longer, but never considers the possibility that the research would simply be financed directly through public funds with all the findings placed in the public domain. Is there just a mental blockage here or is something else going on?
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