July 19, 2014
Okay, this is really getting pathetic. Yet another piece on drug companies charging hundreds of thousands for drugs (wrongly described as their “cost”) which never mentions government granted patent monopolies.
Does the NYT and other media outlets have a ban on discussing patents? Look, we have an incredibly stupid way of financing the research and development of prescription drugs. We don’t have to do it this way. Anyone hear of the National Institutes of Health? Just think, if we paid for the research up front these drugs would cost hundreds of dollars instead of hundreds of thousands of dollars. All the information uncovered in their discovery would be immediately available for other researchers to benefit from. And, the drug companies would not have enormous incentive to lie about their safety and effectiveness.
And, we wouldn’t have all this absurd handwringing about the tough ethical choices in paying for incredibly expensive drugs. Are reporters and columnists prohibited from raising this question or do they really have so little imagination that they can’t even envision an alternative to patent financed research?
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