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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."
Cheap thalidomide for the brown people of the world!
That is great, but when you're old and you go in with a life threatening illness and your national health insurance determines that you aren't the most viable, they are going to withhold the proper medication and treatment. You will also have to wait in a big line like cattle. Whereas, in the U.S. treatment tends to be prompt and conducted without discriminating privately insured patients. And, the lines are short, the doctors are the best, and the drugs/treatment are always available and ready. They aren't going to send you home and tell you that you have to wait for a few months for treatment of something that might kill you in weeks like they would in a socialist country.
...the poor? In 15 years you have twice as many poor.
Maybe the World Bank could make it a condition for poor countries getting loans, that they "volunteer" some of their citizens for this project. They could even get a partially-subsidized patent grant in exchange. It's a win-win and it's fair too, because they don't have anything to offer but miserable, uneducated and useless masses?
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky