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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (24185)	8/22/2001 11:46:45 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

I suppose it is a matter of principle. ``This will have no impact whatsoever on Roche,'' said Neil Zweig, an analyst at Ryan, Beck & Co. ``It's a relatively unimportant drug for them and Brazil, despite having a large population, in and of itself is not important for Roche any more than it would be for any of the large, foreign pharmaceuticals firms,'' he said. You are a Merck shareholder... if you knew that overlooking a move like this would have no tangible effect on Merck and could save many lives, what do your principles tell you that Merck should do? I'm sure your absolute, externally referenced moral beliefs have something to say about such situations. Although Brazil has a high AIDS incidence in absolute numbers it has managed to keep infection to less than 1 percent of the population with an aggressive prevention campaign. It has also cut the number of HIV (news - web sites)-related deaths in half by producing drugs and distributing them free of charge. It would seem a shame to shoot down a program that seems to be working, if shooting it down would not result in significant compensatory benefit elsewhere. Of course one might argue that Brazil's efforts to control AIDS don't mean anything to us. On the other hand, suppose 4 or 5 years from now your daughter goes to a party and meets a very attractive Brazilian fellow.... One could extrapolate to come up with an interesting moral question. Suppose a company came up with a vaccine for AIDS. Suppose further that 80% of the threatened population could not afford it (hardly an unlikely supposition). Should they, as a matter of principle, be refused the vaccine? The only solution that I can come up with would be for the solvent governments of the world to compensate the company for their costs plus a reasonable ROI, take over the patent, and get the stuff to as many people as possible as fast as possible. Socialist, I know, but what else could a principled person do? These situations are not, of course, hypothetical at all. All over the third world, TB is killing people. The treatment lasts a year or more. Many patients cannot afford the drugs, and quit before the course is finished. This does not simply compromise their health. It develops resistant strains of a highly contagious disease. In such cases, wouldn't principle - and long-term self interest - dictate that drugs which are marginal money-makers in the first place be turned over to the public domain to facilitate low-cost production? You probably know more about these things than I: are drug companies in the habit of dropping prices on products once development costs are recovered?