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Nobel Laureate Attacks Medical Intellectual Property
An anonymous reader writes "Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who was fired by the World Bank blasted drug patents in an editorial in the British Medical Journal titled 'Scrooge and intellectual property rights.' 'Knowledge is like a candle, when one candle lights another it does not diminish its light.' In medicine, patents cost lives. The US patent for turmeric didn't stimulate research, and restricted access by the Indian poor who actually discovered it hundreds of years ago. 'These rights were intended to reduce access to generic medicines and they succeeded.' Billions of people, who live on $2-3 a day, could no longer afford the drugs they needed. Drug companies spend more on advertising and marketing than on research. A few scientists beat the human genome project and patented breast cancer genes; so now the cost of testing women for breast cancer is 'enormous.'"
How can you patent something that is a 'naturally' (using that term loosely) occurring genetic abnormality?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
...the guy who originally lit the candle didn't spend millions of dollars figuring out how to light it. I'm all for equal access, but if you're going to spend all this money doing something then it's only fair to be given the chance to reap the rewards.
If there's one area where I think Eminent Domain applies, it is to this sort of "property." If the pharmaceutacals "own" a cancer drug, an AIDS drug, a heart valve palsy drug, then fucking TAKE it from them and give it to the world. If they have to be compensated under eminent domain laws, then give them a twenty year extension on their stupid penis pills, their fat-buster pills, or their toenail fungus cures. If they can do it with your house to make a bypass, then they should be able to do it with something that will really benefit society.
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Why not? If you can forcefully let individual "sell" his property for the greater good, why not a corporation? What is the difference between taking a property from a house- or landowner and a pharmaceutical company?
Very nice, although I think the list of citations is a little short. Dean Baker has been saying much the same thing for some time - but he doesn't have a nobel prize. Still I think he makes a more interesting case for much the same thing and Stiglitz ought to have cited him (among others, but I prefer Baker's writings based on clarity and style.)
I write a new edition of this essay every time the topic comes up (and it has no citations at all, which should not be interpreted as a statement that these are entirely my ideas):
Let us say, just for the sake of argument, that a method of extracting or purifying a gene, or a gene product (a protein) consists of an invention, worthy of patent, in and of itself. This is distinct from patenting the gene itself - if I can do that, I am patenting an end, and not a means to achieving that end. If I come along and purify the same gene product, by some other technique, I'm violating their patent. Crucially, I will violate their patent even I use none of their actual inventions at all! I am violating their patent because I am seeking the same end.
At first glance, this might seem similar to product patents as applied to synthetic molecules. However, in those cases the molecule itself is a unique invention. If I develop a particular technique for tending an orchard, I cannot patent trees! Patenting genes that cause diseases is a separate intellectual fallacy that deserves coverage in it's own right.
This is like patenting the act of killing germs. If a disease is caused by an abnormal (mutant) protein, than the only true cure is to fix that protein - replace it with functional protein, or remove those cells generating the harmful protein, according to the particular condition. The same argument applies to gene-products (proteins) that cause elevated risk for cancer, heart disease and the like. A patent on the gene is basically a patent on all possible cures for that condition/predilection. A gene that causes a predilection for breast cancer should be viewed as a condition in and of itself (which needs to be at least treated,) and not as some part of a particular treatment for breast cancer.
Finally, I should say our genomes, not just collectively, but individually, are the property of the human race. In a biological sense, they are the human race.
Bees are generally black and yellow, and have poisonous stingers. Individual bees, however black or yellow they may be, and poisonous their stingers may be, are all 100% bees - they all possess an equal allotment of beeness. Likewise, the quality of humanity is 100% endowed to each of us.
However, it does not arise from any of us individually. We are all human only because the entire human species exists. The genome of any individual person is not sufficient to specify the human race; the genetic diversity of your fellow human beings is part and parcel of your fundamental human identity.
The same is true, in fact, of the genetic diversity of all known living things, which are our cousins.
Many people have a visceral objection to the idea of a gene being owned. Certain of my colleagues are fond of implying that the objections of laymen arise from some degree of scientific ignorance, or a lack of appreciation for the effort that goes into doing molecular biology. I am a molecular biologist myself, fully cognizant of the hard work that is done. I understand all of that quite well, but I come to the same visceral conclusion: you cannot own that which makes us human.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Personally, I'd rather live in that world where I can move as high as my talent can take me, than live in a world of enforced "equality" that really means transferring money from the doers to the takers.
I certainly agree with your preferences, but we don't really live in that world. Becoming extremely rich and/or powerful usually means being born into that position, or some combination of luck and breaking the law without being caught.
All most people want is the corruption from the top removed, and a little safety net at the bottom so that a string of bad luck doesn't destroy your life.
Profit means better service for the customers who can afford it.
there. i fixed that for you.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Exceptions to every rule...
However, the vast majority of health problems in the US are caused by lifestyle. Not everyone who has lung cancer smokes. However, most of them do. No everyone with heart disease eats fatty food. Most of them do.
Not all diabetes can be cured with exercise and diet. However, if you are overweight and have a bad diet, then that should be addressed before a doc whips out his prescription pad.
>>I love to walk and often walk several miles a day
You could walk all day long and still be out of shape. Every adult needs 45+ minutes of 80% max heart rate exercise 5+ days a week. Walking will rarely get you above 60% MHR. That's fine for losing weight, but no good for overall fitness.
Look at the recommendations for body composition. A 6' male should weigh no more than 170lbs. At 190lbs he would be obese. At what, 210, he'd be morbidly obese. How many 6' males do you know who weigh 170? 190? 210? I'm willing to bet that number ramps up exponentially. Where do you think you fit in?
Once weight and diet are analyzed and fixed, then, and only then, should a doctor prescribe a drug. Too many people take the drug and never fix the problem.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
"In medicine, patents cost lives."
Patents cost lives in more than just medicine. I remember hearing about an African country that turned down a shipment of grain because it had been genetically altered. The fact that it was genetically altered wasn't the problem. The problem was that there were patents on the alterations and the government knew that farmers would use some of the grain to raise new crops. That country chose to let their people starve rather than face the consequences of patent infringement.
Corporations don't give a shit about people. They could care less if you as an individual lived or died. You and I are nothing but prospective customers, a possible source of profit and it is only to that end they care.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
and I say to the poor, "Let them eat cake".
Your right to live should depend entirely on how much money you have.
[neo con parody off]
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
FTA:|The chief executive of Novartis, a drug company with a history of social responsibility, said "We have no model which would [meet] the need for new drugs in a sustainable way ... You can't expect for-profit organizations to do this on a large scale."|
I haven't looked at the cost to bring a drug to market (from discovery to preclinical work through to NDA filing) recently, but last I saw it was in the region of $800 million US. Most big pharmas are tweaking the winning compounds they already have rather than pushing riskier candidates through the later stages towards approval. If you can play with the other enantiomer of your already approved product rather than mess with a new molecule, you do that first, assuming you own the rights :) Most of the big pharmas do R&D and spend enormous sums, but the biotechs and biopharmas still do the work on the less favored sons, hoping for a wedding or at least an invite, but as the man from Novartis indicates, it's a business fraught with peril, not many compounds make it through the regulatory authorities like the FDA, EMEA, etc. Pfizer and Lilly and the others do their due diligence and throw seed money at the little guys along with venture capitalists, but sustainability is a big ask when the percentage of compounds receiving approval is as low as it is.
I've seen some extremely innovative research coming out of pharma. Genuine cures are inherently hard to find, and it doesn't matter who is doing the development. You don't see many cures coming out of academic research, either. Perhaps gene therapy or stem cell therapy will end up leading to cures, but the technology isn't there yet. And there is a lot of work on both of these technologies coming out of both industrial and academic labs.
So if the government spent, say, a billion dollars developing a new drug, and the drug they produced ended up doing more harm to be good and had to be abandoned, you think the public and the press would simply say "Them's the breaks?" No congressional investigations, no 20:20 hindsight political scandal over whether Congressman so-and-so supported the project because the lab was in his district? None of the sort of stuff that routinely happens if the government invests a billion dollars into building a fighter plane that doesn't fly?
Advertising for prescription drugs used to be illegal. After that was "deregulated", it grew to twice the cost of drug R&D. There is now one pharmaceutical sales rep for every four doctors in the US.
Until the 1980s, drugs developed at Government expense went into the public domain immediately. Now, pharmaceutical companies can buy rights to government-developed drugs.
Big Pharma has negotiated several special deals to extend patent lifetimes. Patents are extended by the time the FDA spends evaluating the drug. And then there's a "proprietary rights in drug testing data" thing, which means that the company which did clinical testing gets an exclusion right against generic makers which can outlast the patent. And then there's a special extension of exclusivity deal if a drug company pushes an existing drug through clinical testing for children, which can extend the patent life.
But when the patent runs out, the price goes way down. Claritin used to be over $1/tablet; now the generic version is about $0.12 each.
A friend of mine is in health care. She stated she would never want to go to a private, for profit, hospital. Why? Because every decision they make is based on profitability. She has seen both professionally, and a non-profit hospital put the patient first and the cost second. For profits focus on what they can bill.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Your idea is similar to that of the Free software bounty. However, it may result in a "free rider problem" - if 999,999,999 people have already promised $10 for that cure, there is no incentive for that last person to pledge their share. As the pot grows, people will receive more of a benefit by paying for existing treatments for themselves than pitching in for further research.
Not to say that this or a similar system couldn't work, but this is a serious problem that would need to be addressed.
[In an exam room] Doctor: "Mrs. Johnson, I'd love to put you on a statin to lower your blood cholesterol levels and a beta-blocker for your chronic chest pain and high blood pressure, BUT random-smacktard1337 on slashdot thinks you need to get your fatass to the gym and stop stuffing your face first. So, get to it and check back with me when you're HEALTHY!"
Doctor: "What? It's not that simple? Well, that's not MY problem, now is it?"
...
Doctor: 'What will you do in the time between your miraculous transformation from an out-of-shape slob into a disciplined, world-class athlete?' How should do I know?! I only treat knowledgeable, motivated patients; not the vast majority of people--NOW GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!"
....
Doctor: "Hmmph... the nerve of some people...."
[/sarcasm] All kidding aside, it's quite clear that you have never spent a minute in a real-life clinical setting. Is there a place for preventative medicine? Of course. Could preventative medicine and proper lifestyles have prevented most incidents of type-II diabetes. In all likelihood, yes--but what do you do with people who have diabetes NOW? And what if they CAN'T exercise like they should? (You know, believe it or not, some people have more than one disease--go figure.) And even if they aren't compliant and don't exercise, what harm is there is there in doing what YOU (as a health-care provider) CAN do to help? Aren't lazy or [Insert Flaw Here] people entitled to medical care too?
Lastly, I think you're being quite flippant about the effects of diabetes when you associate it with benign diseases like Erectile Dysfunction. I'm positive if you asked the staff of any ward unit at any hospital across the country to tell you about patients who have lost life or limb as a direct or indirect result of diabetes, you would find that between them they could tell you about HUNDREDS of cases.
-Grym
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive
property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an
individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the
moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and
the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is
that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening
mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the
moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to
have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them,
like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any
point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being,
incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in
nature, be a subject of property.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
There is no evidence to support the concept that "intellectual property" patents actually encourage innovation. The candle metaphor used in the article is directed exactly at this concept. Anyone conversant with the history of science beginning with Francis Bacon and onward through the formation and growth of the Royal Societies and the other national and international scientific associations knows this. Knowledge leads to knowledge. The very REASON for peer review is to test one's data, methods, and conclusions against other knowledge. Secrecy around "intellectual property" encourages a "small pond" approach to peer review and limits the actual functionality of the scientific method and effectively intellectually isolates the very researchers attempting to benefit from the "secret." Patents, secrets, and "intellectual" property hobble any science, and will force increases in cost at the expense of money, time and efficenicy. At the other end of the scale, incidents such as the "discovery" and patentiang of Tumeric, a substance widely documented as a folk-remedy, is simple theft, pure and simple. It was cynical and can even be construed as greedy and vicious. Certainly the patent didn't support a costly research effort, nor does protect a "discovery." Ultimately the tumeric patent was struck down. One could argue that rather than the government issue patents, business should be required to rely soley on industrial secrecy to protect their "intellectual" property. This would immediately simplify many things. WIth no more patent system the demand and cost of patent lawyers vanishes over night. If an individual wishes to actually benefit from the knowledge of others through peer review, then they bite the bullet and decide whether the lost of the "exclusivity" of their "secret" is balanced by the gain of the insight of others. Each time they seek the response of the community innovation actually WILL be encouraged.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
You lost your right to say that Americans are free when you didn't butcher Dubya and string up the supreme court for imposing their own opinions on a set of election results that were not even remotely clear, and refusing to even hear the appeals of the tens of thousands of disenfranchised voters that were barred from voting just for being poor and having names that were too similar to those of a convicted criminals in other states. That you don't lynch-mob government officials that engage in gerrymandering is proof enough that you don't even care if your elections are even remotely representative. Even allowing the existence of "lobbying" (AKA bribery) is an embarassment for any nation in which it occurs. America is not free, it is not democratic, and it is by far the stupidest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Consider this: it is the only non-Muslim nation where there are actually a sizable number of people that question the value of literacy... and are willing to elect leaders that lack it.
You assume the United States is the only one with a stupid government.
And you are too ready to call people "stupid" instead of thinking.
Politicians, broadly speaking, are not stupid. The rewards which flow to a successful politician - money and power - are huge. There is therefore a lot of competition. Stupid people have no chance.
Politicians say stupid things pretty often. That's not because they believe what they're saying; it's because saying those things will get them more votes.
Politicians often pass legislation which harms the people they represent. But the majority of voters don't follow complex issues, so that doesn't affect re-electability. In most cases, the legislation is in response to some special interest. The purpose of passing it is usually to get more campaign donations. It is relatively cheap for large corporations to buy the legislation they want in this way (here's an example).
Our pols are not stupid, just unethical. But our political system seems to favor unscrupulous people.
It's interesting that a hospital or Dr. can be sued for watching a patient die and not helping but [Mistlefoot (636417)] do this everyday with no repercussions.
I wonder if this could be winnable in a US court.....probably not....
Why isn't this murder? Watching someone die a slow painful death when you could keep them alive is certainly not something that this country claims is humane.
What prevents you from drawing your checkbook and paying for the fucking drugs? How are you better than the big pharmas? They have developped drugs and made something possible : now ANYBODY (the patient, the govt, any charity, even you...) can buy the drugs for the patients. What have YOU done? You're blasting the big pharmas for not doing enough.
You're such a hero. It's a pity the world is not 100% populated by your type. Nobody would do anything, but everybody would blame the others for not doing enough.
It would be like heaven on earth, wouldn't it?
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.