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Drug Giant Pledges Cheap Medicine For World's Poor
bmsleight writes in with a Guardian piece on the decision of the world's second biggest pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline, to radically shift its attitude towards providing cheap drugs to millions of people in the developing world. "[The new CEO] said that GSK will... cut its prices for all drugs in the 50 least developed countries to no more than 25% of the levels in the UK and US — and less if possible — and make drugs more affordable in middle-income countries such as Brazil and India; put any chemicals or processes over which it has intellectual property rights that are relevant to finding drugs for neglected diseases into a 'patent pool,' so they can be explored by other researchers; and reinvest 20% of any profits it makes in the least developed countries in hospitals, clinics, and staff."
Not only do we taxpayers get to carry on subsidising the world's poor and keeping their leaders in designer shoes, now as customers of the drugs companies, we get to subsidise their medicines as well.
I give to charities, domestic and foreign, because I've decided they are deserving of my money. It is not the job of Government to do so on my behalf.
This was marked as a Troll!? *sigh* How is this any different than the higher-ranked posts above that all but drip with condemnation for the Eeeeviillllll Corporation even when the corporation is actually doing *something* to lower costs?
Ahh Leftdot, you do not disappoint.
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