Pharmaceutical companies are better at inventing diseases that match existing drugs, rather than inventing drugs to match existing diseases.
From The Bed of Procrustes
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
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Pharmaceutical companies are better at inventing diseases that match existing drugs, rather than inventing drugs to match existing diseases.
From The Bed of Procrustes
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Instead of bitching about Big Pharma, let's look at Big Gov's underlying involvement in the matter. Would there even be statins today without the McGovern committee and the institutional demonization of SFAs?
I own a couple of small companies, and I'm clear I'm a little guy. But one of my companies is getting quite large in its market. Perhaps I'll come to dominate that market in the next 4-5 years. At that point am I the evil big guy?
It's so funny how BIG Pharma or BIG Tobacco or BIG Oil are derogatory terms. It's fun to point out that the only way to get big is to be successful, and then ask the person using the term if he would instead refer to them as Successful Oil, Successful Tobacco, etc. That usually spins out into a discussion that makes me realize how few critical thinkers exist in the world.
I don't follow your logic that raising the cost to get drugs to market forces the drug companies to be evil.
They're putting out worthless or dangerous drugs and making money on them by pumping doctors full of misinformation. They are falsifying research and in essence addicting people to their substances.
Making the process cheaper and easier would likely have exactly the opposite effect. Government may or may not be the answer, letting the foxes guard the hen house is likely not.
People do not understand how much research Uncle Sam actually pays for, nor how many of the things we use today came about through government funding. I say this not to be all "rah-rah-big-government" but it is not as clearcut as saying "business good, government evil." Y'all don't think the government is so evil when someone's just broken into your house and you have to call the police. The trouble with the demonization of saturated fats was an unwillingness on the part of the experts to take a nuanced view and follow the science rather than forcing the science to follow them. Libertarians make the same mistake when it comes to government and to social issues. Quit it.
"Y'all don't think the government is so evil when someone's just broken into your house and you have to call the police."
By Y'all I assume you are referring to us selfish libertarians. Thank God for nuanced views. If someone invades my home I'd prefer to defend myself with a gun rather than wait for local law officials who might simply arrest me for filming them. Or perhaps shoot my puppy by accident, uhm in the line of duty
If only libertarians could understand nuance...
I think the typical libertarian perspective (at least from what I hear from those who claim to be libertarians) is, economically speaking, very naive. It is rooted in idealized, small-scale, entrepreneurial capitalist free market system that does exist in our world, but which is not the dominant context for most (in terms of sheer dollars) transactions that take place. Pfizer and GSK may compete in the drugstore, but they are also co-members of big promotional and obligational networks that distort this idealized 'free' marketplace. There is no personal responsibility required in that system.
They are common in the United States.
(Just wait until Rupert Murdoch takes over several Swedish newspapers and a Swedish television network. You will start to see nonsense like this everywhere in Sweden.)
It's like being trapped in a zombie movie that never ends.
And wait until your mom starts talking this way. Yes, even your mother, sitting all day in front of a TV propaganda machine owned by Rupert Murdoch, will turn into someone you don't recognize. It can happen -- it happened to me.