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To: TimF who wrote (183403)	2/3/2006 1:53:35 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

re: The government becoming the only customer is itself an manipulation. Governments. Markets organize themselves in the most efficient form. With drugs, the most efficient (lowest cost) is for countries to be customers. re: In addition to that part other countries have the same types of manipulations and interventions in to the market for drugs that the US has. Example? Are we the only country that prohibits the government from negotiating the best price?

To: TimF who wrote (183403)	2/3/2006 2:14:41 PM
From: BelowTheCrowd	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

Our IP protection system (which we eagerly export) provides a level of protection for drug manufacturers that is incomparable to anything that's ever been afforded that industry anywhere in the world. Mostly, it doesn't pay for R&D. It pays for more lawywers, more lobbyists and more junkets for doctors. (Why is it that in just about any other field, receiving gifts and trips from vendors is considered a bribe???) This was written by a couple of conservative economists: dklevine.com Chapter 8 is quite illuminating but makes more sense in context of all the rest. Note that I don't completely agree with the findings, but it made me really rethink my own opinion on the matter. More than anything, the point made is that our decisions about the extent of protection we provide for innovation in the drug business (or any business) is inherently one of policy, and inherently one of market-meddling. The reality of the pharma industry today -- an industry with fantastic profits and huge give-aways to everybody from politicians to doctors to pharma exectives -- suggests that our market-meddling activities have exceeded that which is necessary to guarantee innovation, and gone beyond into the realm of ensuring excess monopoly profit. This should be no surprise. Our government has gone haywire in its grants of greater and greater rights to IP, despite the fact that all the industries most effected: software, entertainment, pharma, were doing quite well without it.