On Fri, 28 Dec 2001 17:29:02 +0900, Doug Lerner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I wasn't even going to respond to the hypothetical about the avaracious > drug company withholding medication from poor people, but the logic of > the answer bothered me so much I decided to. > > Even though my question was never answered by anybody (do the investors > of time and money in drug research deserve to make a profit for their > efforts?) I will answer yours. > > Your example seems to imply that anybody who puts forth effort and > creates something that society finds useful and important then personally > becomes liable financially to make sure that everybody who needs it gets it. > > I say to that - WHAT?! > > The answer to the problem of poor people not getting drugs from a drug > company is not to steal the patent. It is for government and charities > and properly run health care systems to acquire the medication and > distribute it as needed.
As I mentioned earlier, the Brazilian Government made their decision only after all other avenues had been explored. The health system of Brazil (or even for the US for that matter) does not have enough funds to help everyone in the best way possible. Negotiations were made with Roche in an effort to lower the exhorbitant price of nelfinavir. These failed, leaving the government with little alternative. The UN has praised the move, and the USA has withdrawn the official objection they had lodged through the WTO. Other AIDS-striken nations, like South Africa, are investigating similar methods. > Again, that it what government, taxes and charities are FOR. Capitalism and social welfare often don't work well together. Generally, here is little or no profit for private corporations in social welfare, and governments are reluctant to put more funds into this vital sphere for fear of alienating the business comunity, who increasingly have the power to divert their investment to other countries at the wink of an eye. Governments, particularly those of lesser developed countries (LDCs) have limited funds. LDCS often have huge debts to pay as well. They don't need the added burden of paying double the real cost of some drug. They _could_ probably get the money, but that would divert funds from other pressing tasks, and would hamper the economy (which would make things even worse in the long run). > Yes, you can hypothecate about some drug company blackmailing society > over some needed drug. And, in fact, there are already laws allowing the > government to license the patent to competing firms in that case. That > almost happened in Canada recently over Cipro, but it turned out not to > be necessary. But you are talking about the exception, not the rule. I never said it was the rule. However, the few exceptions that _do_ exist warrant some consideration due to their massive impacts. Would you rather that people die? The Canadian example you offer is interesting. There really isn't much difference between this and what is happening in Brazil. I know little about Cipro, but the difference here seems to be that nelfinavir is made and owned by a completely foreign manufacturer. In that case, how can it be licensed to competing firms? > Extending the argument that it is somehow the responsibility of the dryg > company to also supply it to everybody in need, regardless of financial > impact, you could also say that anybody who produces anything that > anybody needs somehow assumes an ethical responsibility to make sure they > get it. > > But there is a different between the producing side and the consuming > side. Just because a person wants to be creative and inventive shouldn't > put the person at financial risk by society. I should first say that I am not arguing that you are wrong. The difference here is simply that we are taking different approaches to the topic. I believe that for a democracy to properly function, everyone and everything in it (including corporations) should hold some responsibility for its functioning. Otherwise, we see what is happening in nations like the USA or Australia (my country): rising social inequality. In the long run, this can only be bad for a society. My view is more like that espoused in Europe and Asia. Take Japan, for example. To the Japanese, your views would be totally alien. In the past fifty years, they have undergone more rapid economic transformation than any other nation, while _maintaining_ social equality. They have done this by making everyone and everything accountable for the welfare of the nation. In the same period, social equality has markedly fallen in Anglo-American capitalist states. No nation has ever moved from an 'underdeveloped' to a 'developed' state by using Anglo-American economic principles (which you seem to embrace). Indeed, most nations that have adopted such methods have gone backward. While your views may be 'alien' to the Japanese (or to many other peoples), it doesn't necessarily mean they are 'wrong', just 'different'. > doug > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): > > >On Thu, 27 Dec 2001 11:02:18 +0900, Doug Lerner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> > >> > >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thursday, December 27, 2001): > >> >Well the analogy of the clay pot may not be good at all. Consider this-- > >> > > >> >I make a clay pot, and I fire it and I go to a lawyer and show him the > >> >product and get him to draft a patent so that no one else can glaze clay > >> >pots or decorate them in any way without paying me royalties. I file > >> >the patent and use the proceeds from my clay pots to threaten to keep > >> >anyone else who fires clay pots in court for years of ruinous spending > >> >battling my army of lawyers unless they pay me ransom for protection > >> >against lawsuit. > >> > >> I believe that patent law requires more than just something new. It has > >> to be something that is not obvious too. > > > >In theory this is true. In practice, however, the US Patent Office gives > >patents > >for just about anything. As Civileme noted, BT has patents on > >hyperlinking, and > >Apple has patents on desktop theming. Unisys has a patent on LZW compression > >(which is used in the GIF image format), which is a _very_ simple algorithm > >indeed. Such patents only serve to harm the industry, since the patent owners > >will sue anyone that breaches them. BT now has the power to sue anyone who's > >ever made or accessed a web page, and Unisys can sue anybody who makes GIF > >images (which is why you should use PNG instead). Even colour palettes can be > >patented: The GIMP cannot do CYMK colours (which are necessary for print) > >because of patents held by printing companies. > > > >> Let me ask the opposite question. Suppose a drug company takes hundreds > >> of millions of dollars from thousands of investors and uses the money for > >> research and creates a drug that improves the daily lives of millions of > >> people. Do the people who invested in the enterprise deserve to profit > >> from this? Or should anybody be allowed to come along and make generic > >> copies of the drug without bothering to invest in time and effort to do > >> the research? > > > >Okay, then let me ask you this. Suppose a pharmaceutical company holds the > >rights to a drug that can help the lives of millions of people in lesser > >developed countries. The only catch is that the cost of the drug is > >exhorbitant > >-- far above cost price and far more than those in need can afford. The > >drug may > >only get to a tiny percentage of sufferers, but the pharmaceutical > >company makes > >billions. In this case, would it be wrong for someone to break the patent so > >that the drug could be manufactured to help millions? > > > >Now, replace "pharmaceutical company" with Roche (a massive Swiss-based firm) > >and "someone to break the patent" with the Brazilian government. The drug is > >nelfinavir, designed to treat AIDS sufferers. The decision was made after > >Roche > >refused to lower the cost of nelfinavir, which was taking up 28 percent > (US$82 > >million) of the health ministry's annual budget. Producing it locally slashed > >costs by 40 percent. The United Nations has praised the move. > > > >The software industry is not much different. Both industries are > >dominated by a > >few huge transnational corporations, which charge far more than their > products > >are actually worth. I am not against the idea of intellectual property, but > >there needs to be some strict limits. > > > >> >The problem does not rest with Intellectual property but with > >> >application which has definitely become a reductio ad absurdem. > >> > Non-productive drones feast off the efforts of the workers, the > >> >software writers, and squelch creativity. This is the reality and it is > >> >why anything I write is GPL. > >> > > >> >Civileme -- Sridhar Dhanapalan "I don't think it's right and I think it causes people to make decisions which are not even in their best interest. A, we're not evil. B, we're not an empire." -- Steve Ballmer, objecting to Microsoft being called "The Evil Empire"
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