Though this probably won't get the pulitzer (sp?) for investigative journalism, I'm sure that the RR folks will get several interesting phone calls from lawyers in the next few days. Pretty much everyone who was laid off/fired since the tests were going on is guaranteed $$.
Even if the company tries to argue this in court (that the firing was not based on genetic tests), their credibility is pretty much shot through of holes.
Speaking of shooting, I think the Board of Directors should be dragged into the street and shot. I'm serious about this. This kind of invasion of privacy is on a whole new level.
Fine, this time it was testing for CTS, next time?
The thing is, if we let shit like this slide, it sets precedent. In this country, precedent is everything.
It'd be nice if we had some real leaders, and not some corporate pawns - this refers to bush and gore, and the majority of politicians out there.
Gattaca is not coming, we will see people hanging from the lampposts before that. I wonder how much shit will happen before people start actually going after their rights.
A few hundred killings is all that is needed to make America a great place to live.
- we just got to get the right people.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
An Indian company, Cipla, has announced that it will supply a copy of a 3 drug AIDS cocktail to an international charity, "Doctors without Borders" a.k.a. "Medecins sans Frontieres" for a highly discounted price. For only $350 a year, "Doctors Without Borders" will be able to treat a person and allow him or her to live a productive life. These drugs are revolutionary, the same ones that are given to AIDS patients in the United States and other "first world" countries, however, the price for a year's supply in the "first world" is close to (and sometimes exceeds) $11,000. Somewhat understandably, the drug companies that created these drugs are upset about the "unauthorized" copying of their drugs, especially because they will be losing substantial income due to distribution of "copycat" drugs. In this essay, I will focus on the relationship between a company having sole "intellectual property " over a product and the price setting that comes from it. This essay will also show why the concept of intellectual "property" hurts more than it helps, especially in the medical sector.
Why Intellectual Property (Namely Patents) Are Bad
The first major problem with intellectual property is that when one company (or consortium thereof) has control over a market, prices have a tendency to be fixed, as there is only one supplier. This does not only apply to non-tangible items, it is evident in most, if not all aspects of the retail market. Diamonds, Music CD's, College Textbooks and a variety of other items are priced pretty much the same, often with the price several hundred or thousand percent higher than the cost of production (i.e. Nike shoes made in China). Clearly price fixing does not help the consumer - it helps the company selling the product. That, by itself, is not bad, as it is the basis of a capitalist society, and the reason why the majority of us have jobs. Capitalism is based on making something for a certain price / offering a service and then getting other people to sell the product at a higher price, finally giving the difference to people along the line.
Officially, monopolies are illegal, but patents give a single company the exclusive right to produce a product for a certain amount of time. This gives the company the "rights" of a monopoly - the ability to set prices, to set the amount produced, to define the supply / demand characteristics of the particular market.
How sales of cheap drugs would benefit the drug industry
Financial Reasons
The business of medicine is very lucrative, as there will (at least in the foreseeable future) always be sick people. This cocktail is not a cure for AIDS, far from it. Eventually the patient will die, however these drugs can extend the patient's life for 10, 15, even 20 years. A great deal of money can be made during this time - even if the drugs are sold at discount prices.
According to the United Nations, there are about 34.3 million people currently living with aids/HIV worldwide. Assuming the drug cocktail was distributed at the price of $350 to each of the 34.4 million people, the drug industry would receive $12,005,000,000 US a year from the sale of these drugs.
If we take a average 10 year life expectancy from these drugs, and assuming the current number of AIDS patients, 10 years of selling the drugs at the reduced price would net the drug companies $120,050,000,000.
Incidentally, if the drugs were supplied at the current US going rate of $10,400, yearly net proceeds would be in the area of $356,720,000,000. 10-year proceeds would be in the area of 3.2 trillion dollars; by comparison, the United States Debt is about 5.7 trillion .
One major fact to keep in mind is that the number of AIDS cases is increasing worldwide, and although promises of cures / vaccines have been made, there have been only disappointing results.
In any case, under the current policies of the drug makers, the same price fixing would occur if a cure or vaccine were invented.
I was (expectedly) unable to receive an official cost of producing the drug cocktail, nor information on production - numbers, capabilities, future plans, etc... I am therefore unable to make statements regarding profitability, et cetera. However a source in the medical industry revealed that Cipla would be making a profit on the sale of these drugs - not a significant profit, but enough to open new production facilities.
Another major reason why drug companies should drop their price is that countries are beginning to take matters in their own hands - South Africa has begun talks with Cipla about helping its citizens get medication, blatantly ignoring "worldwide" patent / copyright "law". Similarly, the government of Brazil, as a result of the effects of AIDS on its population; has stated that they will suspend patents on medical drugs unless the major drug companies reduce the price of AIDS drugs.
If the drug industry does not get in line quickly, similar actions are likely to occur in many countries with high AIDS rates; in this case, drug companies would be shut out from the market completely, and would make nothing.
This sets a precedent for the future - countries can and will refuse to pay royalties or abide by ANY copyrights or patents. Countries would make their own drugs; and may even go as far as copying any product that would be cheaper to produce inside its borders on a large scale. This would clearly have grave effects on the global market. Consider that case of software piracy - rampant piracy gives yearly losses of several billion dollars.
If countries blatantly rejected international patents / copyrights, the drug companies would have little recourse. The United States (in its current state at least) is not going to go to war against a country for violating a patent - especially a patent that is being violated for humanitarian reasons. Sanctions would also have limited effectiveness - assuming that sanctions would not be forced off the floor of Congress.
Mass production would, in the long run, make the drug companies more money; especially considering that AIDS is infecting a greater number of people daily. Research into a cure should still go on, however I believe governments should be responsible for development (as drug companies would have a conflict of interest - namely the one hundred twenty billion US dollars over ten years).
How sales of discount drugs will help people:
Historical Reasons
Less than 50 years ago small pox was a leading cause of death in the world.
In 1968, WYETH (American Home Products parent company) waived the patent royalties on its bifurcated needle. This move allowed immunizations on a massive scale - 200 million smallpox vaccinations per year. Combined with outbreak control techniques reduced small pox deaths dramatically - so dramatically that in 1979, the World Health Organization declared the eradication of smallpox. Through a massive and admirable effort, smallpox was eradicated over a period of eleven years - something that would not of have been done without the royalty waiver.
WYETH and American Home Products are still around today and make quite a bit of money on its sales of products such as Advil and Robitussen. American Home Products took a significant hit in the pocketbook and allowed the eradication of smallpox.
Historically, when intellectual property has been given away for free, there has been a positive effect. Granted, the company that holds the patent loses money, but it is for the greater good.
How sales of discount drugs will help people
Current Reasons
When people are unable to buy medication and die as a result, clearly people are hurt. This sentence is very brutal, but reflects the facts of AIDS and of life in general.
Most of the poor countries of the world have a population that cannot afford to pay for a drug cocktail; tragically, the governments are not much better off and are unable to pay the going rates on the medication for their population. However if the MSF (Doctors without Borders) provides AIDS cocktails for free, then
It was mentioned that the cocktail is not a cure for aids - however the cocktail allows for the person to live a longer life - possibly extending the lifetime to a pre aids epidemic life expectancy - or close to it - and possibly letting the person see the day when a cure for aids is found. In Zimbabwe, the life expectancy has dropped from 65 to only 39 due to AIDS. Denying a person the drug cocktail is denying the person's chance to be cured and ultimately sentencing them to death.
The Other Side of the Coin
There needs to be money to do Research and Development, companies also can not afford to give out medication for free - especially when the cost of production is not the only money that a company loses. When another company replicates your drugs, you lose money that would otherwise go into back into the company - and that means less money for research and development.
Patents were created for that purpose - to reward the inventor and keep him or her inventing.
The major drug companies have dropped rates on some drugs by up to 90% for some third world nations - effectively reducing the price to $1,008 to $1,821 a year , this is a great discount, especially considering that these drugs are guaranteed authentic, quality control is always an issue - authentic drugs are almost impossible to tell apart from colored sugar pills - and the manufacturer of the drug is more trustworthy than some company who makes medication in a third world country. Moreover,
Rebuttal
Accepting the drug companies arguments can be difficult, but in some areas, they have merit, in other areas, the arguments are purely FUD . Fortunately, most of the FUD can be easily refuted; take, for example, the industry claim that it needs money for research and development - outside of company expenses (salary of workers, dividends, etc.) 40 percent of the money that Glaxo spent lat year was not in R+D or salary, but in marketing of its products in Europe and North America.
The price cuts are significant, however, the drugs are still out of reach for most of the population of the third world, even at the reduced prices, there is a significant portion of people in the United States that would be hard pressed to pay for drugs at the discounted rate, not even mentioning what the rate is today.
Conclusions
That is needed for the here and now is an offer by the major drug companies to reduce the cost of the AIDS cocktail to affordable levels - not only in the third world, but in the First and Second worlds as well. AIDS infects several million people and the market of selling these life-extending drugs is lucrative even at extremely discounted prices - several billion dollars could be netted yearly by the drug companies and even with a meager profit margin, a great amount could be made in treating people with the disease - hopefully letting them live long enough to be cured.
With such positive effects, it is difficult to see how profit margins can get in the way - the lack of ethics is repulsive and disgusting to the highest degree. Price gouging of the sick and dying is essentially what is happening - some would even say murder - there is no question that these people will die without medication, and any statement about "they are going to die anyways", is ludicrous, cold hearted and amounts to supporting "involuntary euthanasia", if not murder.
Drug companies should use their funds more responsibly and be willing to take cuts in their income for the greater good of mankind. American Home Products could of have made billions if they had not released their patent on the bifurcated needle, but didn't, and by doing so, became a key player in eradicating smallpox.
Drug companies eventually will come to realize that by not selling drugs at an affordable price, they risk having foreign nations make the drugs themselves or get them from somebody else - any government that cares about the health and safety of its citizens is ethically and morally obliged to pursue such measures - even if those measures will bring repercussions.
In a situation as dire as this one, where quite literally millions of lives hang in the balance, there is a need for change in the business practices of the drug companies - whether this be by government intervention and the "suspension" of patents, or by a willing change by the drug companies themselves.
The current situation involved the lives of millions weighed against a company's profit margins; it is clearly and brutally evident why intellectual property should be put aside in this matter if drug companies do not change their policies.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
under public pressure, they backed down. This story was out several months ago, and stirred up alot of controversy, back then they said that they were going to sue, etc. etc. The drug companies just raised some more noise lately.
On a side note, Glaxxo and several other companies agreed to sell the drug at 98% discounts from American prices. This was a last ditch effort to stay in the market.
Think of it, if the drug companies had "found Pretoria guilty" or whatever, their options were quite limited - i.e. refusing to sell aids drugs to the continent wouldn't of have gone down well with their marketing dept, nor would pretty much anything else - trade embargoes on a national level would be the only thing that they could use. South africa would say "OK" to the embargoes, because the US is not exactly the #1 supplier of stuff to S.Africa. Besides, S.Africa is pretty fucking poor, as is the entire continent - Oh no, the kids don't get their pokemon wouldn't of have worked here.
Oh well..
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
The people / area ratio would be more important - it would take less nuclear weapons to create a more devastating attack.
i.e. place 10 nuclear weapons in the major cities in the uttar pradesh province, you get pretty much 33% of the population in one swoop. Add to the fact you get the capital city, with much of the government / infrastructure.
Due to the population spread of China, an indian nuclear attack would do little more than piss the chinese off. Even assuming that the kills were 1:1, the chinese would still have a quarter billion people left.
With those extra people China would win, hands down - Even if the Russians decided to join the party.
Though you have to wonder whether a massive attack would even occur these days.
Still, 250 million people could easily hold down India and Russia. Shit, 500,000 or one million soldiers could _easily_ occupy India once the a land invasion had been successful.
250 million people could attack the United States, occupy it and march on to occupy the rest of the americas. In the good old days they would of have done so, and used many of their army to occupy the rest of the world. Trust me, right now, China could take on the world if their armies were well equiped / marshalled.
But thanks to nukes, they will not.
Wonderful things that nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction do for us.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
hehehe.
You said strap-on.. cool.
Seriously though, its interesting that they have this hodge podge of parts, and amazingly, it all works together. Can we really say that "india" has made it to space? or that they just used parts from the existing technologies, mixed them together and got them to work.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Dude, dumeter says 50 gigs downloaded, 11 gigs up from 3/23/01. The modem at my feet is often nice and warm, shaped almost perfectly as a footrest.
For me, I think a majority is not porn, email, or business use, if you get my drift. Most of it is video, though there's porn in there too. I'd say 20% is kinda excessive - people don't dl porn all day, but might dl movies all day, I dunno.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Dude, they are an internet company - their stock is probably down 98% from this time last year.
Though 100 G should of have been a lot more. It's nice to see these fuckers bleed.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
I'm sure that all intelligence agents have been praying for this for quite some time.
If they nuke china, that would be interesting, though fatalistic for the indians.
There's a lot more chinese than indians, though.
Hopefully their british imperialistic past shines through some day.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Coca-cola vehemently denied that they were trying to target children in a plan to place large adversiements in the coke machines in elementary and secondary schools.
Tobbaco company spokesman "Boy 1" (I dunno the names) from N'Sync denied that the tobbaco companies were "trying to target children", as he took a puff from his ciggarette.
Fine, they were fined, but I don't think the government was hurt in this instance - the "consumer", and he/she should be
As for the fine, 100 G, its alot, but probalby won't put them under, although you never know with some of these internet companies. If the govt is to enforce this,
i.e. you fuck with us - go out of business, we take that new house you bought too. Though I don't feel that the govt is too interested in protecting privacy, if you get my drift.
Also, don't forget that the little bastards often have the most purchasing power in the home ("I want frosted flakes!! not that stuff in a bag, I want tony ... .."
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Fucking aol and earthlink users trying to access their MSN.com, hotmail, and yahoo mail accounts.
The same fuckheads putting up web pages of pictures of their cats and families on geocities and angelfire.
Us warez/mp3/DIvX want to leave a message to all the lUSERS: The internet is full. Please go away.
Seriously, it be cool to see a breakdown of web useage - i.e. 80% "large file transfers" 10% streaming video, 5% porn, 0.005% business use or something...
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
That viewpoint is shallow, and if I could moderate stories. . .
Seriously poster/???, do you have any idea about how TCP/IP / internet routing works?
Traffic is re-routed through the most OPTIMIZED path - That means that one packet goes through LA on its way to delaware, the next packet can go through vancouver bc, or even Frisco or one of the other routers. A packet from LA to Seattle could go to frisco, then to australia, bounce back to vancouver bc and then hit seattle.
Even if you hit one of the Mae's (i.e. one of the main routers like Mae West, Mae East) the traffic is still rerouted. Your Q3 ping times might increase a bit for the next little while, but hey.
As for DoS attacks on main routers: Routers transmit data -
How the hell do you take out a router? Fill it to capacity, fine, then the next one starts taking packets. Or the packet decides where to send the next packet because router 1 is not working.
Remember that even when the main fiber optical line to australia was cut, traffic still got through, albeit a little slower.
Lastly, the internet was not designed for downloading gigabytes of data from warez sites - or playing real time, low ping games - it was designed to share information on a text based, pissant k a second level. I have to say it scaled marvelously.
I'd have to say that if there is a problem, it is that there aren't enough seperate physical connections each of which can carry all the "normal" bandwidth at any point in time
Companies tend not to put in a system that is much better than what they need or can afford - that is the main problem.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Re:In other stupid school administrator news...
on
Sean In The Middle
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· Score: 1
It's called school administrator training.
I don't know if you had a chance to catch 60 minutes 2 this wednesday,but it was an hour long (ok, 40 minutes) special about how pretty much every authority fucked up the columbine incident.
Very informative - 60 minutes grilled the administrators of the school, the police dept refused to even talk to them, etc . . .
The thing is, most of the administrators who worked during the fuckup are still working today.
These people are not the cream of the proverbial crop - most of them are teachers who were shuffled from teaching positions because they sucked in their old positions
Their academic credentials are nothing to write home about either, but then again, the same thing with about half the faculty, so its not like they stand out.
Besides, if you were any good you wouldn't work for a public school.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
How full of shit he seems, how ridiculous his arguements and how much we hate his guts
Insert Dramatic Pause
He still drives a lexsus, while a lot of/. readers drive fucking pintos. I personally drive a '89 mazda mpv that has been in accidents 4 times - and it has not been fixed.
His how full of shit he seems, how ridiculous his arguements and how much we hate his guts...
Insert Dramatic Pause
He still drives a lexsus, while a lot of/. readers drive fucking pintos. I personally drive a '89 mazda mpv that has been in accidents 4 times - and it has not been fixed.
I digress.
Fact is, his whoring for the "Intellectual property is sacrosant" community has done wonders for his career.
It doesn't matter to people like George W. Bush or Al Gore (who I view as a little better, but nowhere near the level of intelligence needed to run a country effectively / be a leader) or their buddies in congress that dictate the law of the land (i.e. TIVO can't block commercials, consumers must watch them, but are free to fast forward boring parts of shows).
I'm sure some stuff will be written under some law in the future.
Tivo better start putting some of the $10 montly fees to lobbying the government.
Oh one last thing; nobody (+2) has seemed to make the correlation between the tivo and a good old american tradition - changing the channel and / or radio station when a commercial comes on.
I hate it when I get in at the end of a good subject.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Re:Mr. Dvorak isn't exactly reliable...
on
Calling Out TiVo
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· Score: 1
you forgot integrity.. oh well
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
make sure that you drag at least 2 lines of cat 5 side by side (cuz its a bitch to change after the fact) and add conduits. Well worth the extra $300 for the house (another 1000 ft of cat 5 - $50, conduits - about 250)
nice comment about the stereo...:)
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Slashdot Mirror
Hahaha. If I had any moderator points left, that would be at +5 funny.
Remember that the DMCA didn't have much opposition in congress.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Even if the company tries to argue this in court (that the firing was not based on genetic tests), their credibility is pretty much shot through of holes.
Speaking of shooting, I think the Board of Directors should be dragged into the street and shot. I'm serious about this. This kind of invasion of privacy is on a whole new level.
Fine, this time it was testing for CTS, next time?
The thing is, if we let shit like this slide, it sets precedent. In this country, precedent is everything.
It'd be nice if we had some real leaders, and not some corporate pawns - this refers to bush and gore, and the majority of politicians out there.
Gattaca is not coming, we will see people hanging from the lampposts before that. I wonder how much shit will happen before people start actually going after their rights.
A few hundred killings is all that is needed to make America a great place to live.
- we just got to get the right people.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Why Intellectual Property (Namely Patents) Are Bad
The first major problem with intellectual property is that when one company (or consortium thereof) has control over a market, prices have a tendency to be fixed, as there is only one supplier. This does not only apply to non-tangible items, it is evident in most, if not all aspects of the retail market. Diamonds, Music CD's, College Textbooks and a variety of other items are priced pretty much the same, often with the price several hundred or thousand percent higher than the cost of production (i.e. Nike shoes made in China). Clearly price fixing does not help the consumer - it helps the company selling the product. That, by itself, is not bad, as it is the basis of a capitalist society, and the reason why the majority of us have jobs. Capitalism is based on making something for a certain price / offering a service and then getting other people to sell the product at a higher price, finally giving the difference to people along the line.
Officially, monopolies are illegal, but patents give a single company the exclusive right to produce a product for a certain amount of time. This gives the company the "rights" of a monopoly - the ability to set prices, to set the amount produced, to define the supply / demand characteristics of the particular market.
How sales of cheap drugs would benefit the drug industry
Financial Reasons
The business of medicine is very lucrative, as there will (at least in the foreseeable future) always be sick people. This cocktail is not a cure for AIDS, far from it. Eventually the patient will die, however these drugs can extend the patient's life for 10, 15, even 20 years. A great deal of money can be made during this time - even if the drugs are sold at discount prices.
According to the United Nations, there are about 34.3 million people currently living with aids/HIV worldwide. Assuming the drug cocktail was distributed at the price of $350 to each of the 34.4 million people, the drug industry would receive $12,005,000,000 US a year from the sale of these drugs.
If we take a average 10 year life expectancy from these drugs, and assuming the current number of AIDS patients, 10 years of selling the drugs at the reduced price would net the drug companies $120,050,000,000.
Incidentally, if the drugs were supplied at the current US going rate of $10,400, yearly net proceeds would be in the area of $356,720,000,000. 10-year proceeds would be in the area of 3.2 trillion dollars; by comparison, the United States Debt is about 5.7 trillion .
One major fact to keep in mind is that the number of AIDS cases is increasing worldwide, and although promises of cures / vaccines have been made, there have been only disappointing results.
In any case, under the current policies of the drug makers, the same price fixing would occur if a cure or vaccine were invented.
I was (expectedly) unable to receive an official cost of producing the drug cocktail, nor information on production - numbers, capabilities, future plans, etc... I am therefore unable to make statements regarding profitability, et cetera. However a source in the medical industry revealed that Cipla would be making a profit on the sale of these drugs - not a significant profit, but enough to open new production facilities.
Another major reason why drug companies should drop their price is that countries are beginning to take matters in their own hands - South Africa has begun talks with Cipla about helping its citizens get medication, blatantly ignoring "worldwide" patent / copyright "law". Similarly, the government of Brazil, as a result of the effects of AIDS on its population; has stated that they will suspend patents on medical drugs unless the major drug companies reduce the price of AIDS drugs.
If the drug industry does not get in line quickly, similar actions are likely to occur in many countries with high AIDS rates; in this case, drug companies would be shut out from the market completely, and would make nothing.
This sets a precedent for the future - countries can and will refuse to pay royalties or abide by ANY copyrights or patents. Countries would make their own drugs; and may even go as far as copying any product that would be cheaper to produce inside its borders on a large scale. This would clearly have grave effects on the global market. Consider that case of software piracy - rampant piracy gives yearly losses of several billion dollars.
If countries blatantly rejected international patents / copyrights, the drug companies would have little recourse. The United States (in its current state at least) is not going to go to war against a country for violating a patent - especially a patent that is being violated for humanitarian reasons. Sanctions would also have limited effectiveness - assuming that sanctions would not be forced off the floor of Congress.
Mass production would, in the long run, make the drug companies more money; especially considering that AIDS is infecting a greater number of people daily. Research into a cure should still go on, however I believe governments should be responsible for development (as drug companies would have a conflict of interest - namely the one hundred twenty billion US dollars over ten years).
How sales of discount drugs will help people:
Historical Reasons
Less than 50 years ago small pox was a leading cause of death in the world.
In 1968, WYETH (American Home Products parent company) waived the patent royalties on its bifurcated needle. This move allowed immunizations on a massive scale - 200 million smallpox vaccinations per year. Combined with outbreak control techniques reduced small pox deaths dramatically - so dramatically that in 1979, the World Health Organization declared the eradication of smallpox. Through a massive and admirable effort, smallpox was eradicated over a period of eleven years - something that would not of have been done without the royalty waiver.
WYETH and American Home Products are still around today and make quite a bit of money on its sales of products such as Advil and Robitussen. American Home Products took a significant hit in the pocketbook and allowed the eradication of smallpox.
Historically, when intellectual property has been given away for free, there has been a positive effect. Granted, the company that holds the patent loses money, but it is for the greater good.
How sales of discount drugs will help people
Current Reasons
When people are unable to buy medication and die as a result, clearly people are hurt. This sentence is very brutal, but reflects the facts of AIDS and of life in general.
Most of the poor countries of the world have a population that cannot afford to pay for a drug cocktail; tragically, the governments are not much better off and are unable to pay the going rates on the medication for their population. However if the MSF (Doctors without Borders) provides AIDS cocktails for free, then
It was mentioned that the cocktail is not a cure for aids - however the cocktail allows for the person to live a longer life - possibly extending the lifetime to a pre aids epidemic life expectancy - or close to it - and possibly letting the person see the day when a cure for aids is found. In Zimbabwe, the life expectancy has dropped from 65 to only 39 due to AIDS. Denying a person the drug cocktail is denying the person's chance to be cured and ultimately sentencing them to death.
The Other Side of the Coin
There needs to be money to do Research and Development, companies also can not afford to give out medication for free - especially when the cost of production is not the only money that a company loses. When another company replicates your drugs, you lose money that would otherwise go into back into the company - and that means less money for research and development.
Patents were created for that purpose - to reward the inventor and keep him or her inventing.
The major drug companies have dropped rates on some drugs by up to 90% for some third world nations - effectively reducing the price to $1,008 to $1,821 a year , this is a great discount, especially considering that these drugs are guaranteed authentic, quality control is always an issue - authentic drugs are almost impossible to tell apart from colored sugar pills - and the manufacturer of the drug is more trustworthy than some company who makes medication in a third world country. Moreover,
Rebuttal
Accepting the drug companies arguments can be difficult, but in some areas, they have merit, in other areas, the arguments are purely FUD . Fortunately, most of the FUD can be easily refuted; take, for example, the industry claim that it needs money for research and development - outside of company expenses (salary of workers, dividends, etc.) 40 percent of the money that Glaxo spent lat year was not in R+D or salary, but in marketing of its products in Europe and North America.
The price cuts are significant, however, the drugs are still out of reach for most of the population of the third world, even at the reduced prices, there is a significant portion of people in the United States that would be hard pressed to pay for drugs at the discounted rate, not even mentioning what the rate is today.
Conclusions
That is needed for the here and now is an offer by the major drug companies to reduce the cost of the AIDS cocktail to affordable levels - not only in the third world, but in the First and Second worlds as well. AIDS infects several million people and the market of selling these life-extending drugs is lucrative even at extremely discounted prices - several billion dollars could be netted yearly by the drug companies and even with a meager profit margin, a great amount could be made in treating people with the disease - hopefully letting them live long enough to be cured.
With such positive effects, it is difficult to see how profit margins can get in the way - the lack of ethics is repulsive and disgusting to the highest degree. Price gouging of the sick and dying is essentially what is happening - some would even say murder - there is no question that these people will die without medication, and any statement about "they are going to die anyways", is ludicrous, cold hearted and amounts to supporting "involuntary euthanasia", if not murder.
Drug companies should use their funds more responsibly and be willing to take cuts in their income for the greater good of mankind. American Home Products could of have made billions if they had not released their patent on the bifurcated needle, but didn't, and by doing so, became a key player in eradicating smallpox.
Drug companies eventually will come to realize that by not selling drugs at an affordable price, they risk having foreign nations make the drugs themselves or get them from somebody else - any government that cares about the health and safety of its citizens is ethically and morally obliged to pursue such measures - even if those measures will bring repercussions.
In a situation as dire as this one, where quite literally millions of lives hang in the balance, there is a need for change in the business practices of the drug companies - whether this be by government intervention and the "suspension" of patents, or by a willing change by the drug companies themselves.
The current situation involved the lives of millions weighed against a company's profit margins; it is clearly and brutally evident why intellectual property should be put aside in this matter if drug companies do not change their policies.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
On a side note, Glaxxo and several other companies agreed to sell the drug at 98% discounts from American prices. This was a last ditch effort to stay in the market.
Think of it, if the drug companies had "found Pretoria guilty" or whatever, their options were quite limited - i.e. refusing to sell aids drugs to the continent wouldn't of have gone down well with their marketing dept, nor would pretty much anything else - trade embargoes on a national level would be the only thing that they could use. South africa would say "OK" to the embargoes, because the US is not exactly the #1 supplier of stuff to S.Africa. Besides, S.Africa is pretty fucking poor, as is the entire continent - Oh no, the kids don't get their pokemon wouldn't of have worked here.
Oh well..
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
A nuke right on target would breach the dam, probably wouldn't have to be a big one. There will be x trillion gallons of water to finish the dam.
Even several well placed penatrator / deep throats might even do the trick, or, as always, a barrage of Fuel Air Explosives.
I love this MAD stuff. Kinda implies that strategy is moot, enter the ring, pick your weapons and go after each other.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
When did this happen?
Napster free for 6 months. Hooked on gnutella now.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
i.e. place 10 nuclear weapons in the major cities in the uttar pradesh province, you get pretty much 33% of the population in one swoop. Add to the fact you get the capital city, with much of the government / infrastructure.
Due to the population spread of China, an indian nuclear attack would do little more than piss the chinese off. Even assuming that the kills were 1:1, the chinese would still have a quarter billion people left.
With those extra people China would win, hands down - Even if the Russians decided to join the party.
Though you have to wonder whether a massive attack would even occur these days.
Still, 250 million people could easily hold down India and Russia. Shit, 500,000 or one million soldiers could _easily_ occupy India once the a land invasion had been successful.
250 million people could attack the United States, occupy it and march on to occupy the rest of the americas. In the good old days they would of have done so, and used many of their army to occupy the rest of the world. Trust me, right now, China could take on the world if their armies were well equiped / marshalled.
But thanks to nukes, they will not.
Wonderful things that nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction do for us.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
You said strap-on.. cool.
Seriously though, its interesting that they have this hodge podge of parts, and amazingly, it all works together. Can we really say that "india" has made it to space? or that they just used parts from the existing technologies, mixed them together and got them to work.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
For me, I think a majority is not porn, email, or business use, if you get my drift. Most of it is video, though there's porn in there too. I'd say 20% is kinda excessive - people don't dl porn all day, but might dl movies all day, I dunno.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Though 100 G should of have been a lot more. It's nice to see these fuckers bleed.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
If they nuke china, that would be interesting, though fatalistic for the indians.
There's a lot more chinese than indians, though.
Hopefully their british imperialistic past shines through some day.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Tobbaco company spokesman "Boy 1" (I dunno the names) from N'Sync denied that the tobbaco companies were "trying to target children", as he took a puff from his ciggarette.
Fine, they were fined, but I don't think the government was hurt in this instance - the "consumer", and he/she should be
As for the fine, 100 G, its alot, but probalby won't put them under, although you never know with some of these internet companies. If the govt is to enforce this,
i.e. you fuck with us - go out of business, we take that new house you bought too. Though I don't feel that the govt is too interested in protecting privacy, if you get my drift.
Also, don't forget that the little bastards often have the most purchasing power in the home ("I want frosted flakes!! not that stuff in a bag, I want tony .
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
The same fuckheads putting up web pages of pictures of their cats and families on geocities and angelfire.
Us warez/mp3/DIvX want to leave a message to all the lUSERS: The internet is full. Please go away.
Seriously, it be cool to see a breakdown of web useage - i.e. 80% "large file transfers" 10% streaming video, 5% porn, 0.005% business use or something...
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Seriously poster/???, do you have any idea about how TCP/IP / internet routing works?
Traffic is re-routed through the most OPTIMIZED path - That means that one packet goes through LA on its way to delaware, the next packet can go through vancouver bc, or even Frisco or one of the other routers. A packet from LA to Seattle could go to frisco, then to australia, bounce back to vancouver bc and then hit seattle.
Even if you hit one of the Mae's (i.e. one of the main routers like Mae West, Mae East) the traffic is still rerouted. Your Q3 ping times might increase a bit for the next little while, but hey.
As for DoS attacks on main routers: Routers transmit data -
How the hell do you take out a router? Fill it to capacity, fine, then the next one starts taking packets. Or the packet decides where to send the next packet because router 1 is not working.
Remember that even when the main fiber optical line to australia was cut, traffic still got through, albeit a little slower.
Lastly, the internet was not designed for downloading gigabytes of data from warez sites - or playing real time, low ping games - it was designed to share information on a text based, pissant k a second level. I have to say it scaled marvelously.
I'd have to say that if there is a problem, it is that there aren't enough seperate physical connections each of which can carry all the "normal" bandwidth at any point in time
Companies tend not to put in a system that is much better than what they need or can afford - that is the main problem.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
I don't know if you had a chance to catch 60 minutes 2 this wednesday,but it was an hour long (ok, 40 minutes) special about how pretty much every authority fucked up the columbine incident.
Very informative - 60 minutes grilled the administrators of the school, the police dept refused to even talk to them, etc . . .
The thing is, most of the administrators who worked during the fuckup are still working today.
These people are not the cream of the proverbial crop - most of them are teachers who were shuffled from teaching positions because they sucked in their old positions
Their academic credentials are nothing to write home about either, but then again, the same thing with about half the faculty, so its not like they stand out.
Besides, if you were any good you wouldn't work for a public school.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Insert Dramatic Pause
He still drives a lexsus, while a lot of
His how full of shit he seems, how ridiculous his arguements and how much we hate his guts...
Insert Dramatic Pause
He still drives a lexsus, while a lot of
I digress.
Fact is, his whoring for the "Intellectual property is sacrosant" community has done wonders for his career.
It doesn't matter to people like George W. Bush or Al Gore (who I view as a little better, but nowhere near the level of intelligence needed to run a country effectively / be a leader) or their buddies in congress that dictate the law of the land (i.e. TIVO can't block commercials, consumers must watch them, but are free to fast forward boring parts of shows).
I'm sure some stuff will be written under some law in the future.
Tivo better start putting some of the $10 montly fees to lobbying the government.
Oh one last thing; nobody (+2) has seemed to make the correlation between the tivo and a good old american tradition - changing the channel and / or radio station when a commercial comes on.
I hate it when I get in at the end of a good subject.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
nice comment about the stereo...:)
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.
Its also a lot nicer to be able to use a laptop / desktop pc anywhere in the area.
Though for gaming and file sharing it does kinda suck (too slow)
I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.