Harriet Washington Quotes
It’s our tax dollars that fund the initial research for these molecules that get transferred to corporations. We have an investment here… We end up paying for our drugs twice. We pay for the initial development through our tax dollars. And then when it goes on the market we pay their inflated prices.
The “inflated prices” refers to the fact Americans pay more for pharmaceuticals than any other country in the world as the American government allows the companies to charge any amounts while other governments either negotiate or mandate much lower prices.
Harriet Washington, Medical Ethicist, Writer & Editor, Speech, University of Georgia, April 3, 2012
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The major killer diseases such as malaria and sleeping sickness are not contracted by Americans, and America is the only large country in the world where the Governments allow the drug companies to charge such high prices and make such huge profits. So any drug that Americans might pay for is a better potential profit generator than one that would be critical to the lives of millions where the governments to preserve lives would force the prices down or allow other companies to also make the drug. See {628648} for other factors affecting drug company priorities.
This quotation is notable as it shows that problems that are not dealt with in one generation can continue for generation after generation. Today we have the exact same problem with overly expensive drugs. In a capitalistic system, every business with good products and sales should make profits. But products that people need to say alive, most people think, should not make larger profit percentages than almost any other business. But this problem is over half a century old in America.
The Bayh-Dole Act (Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act) for the first time allowed universities which held patents obtained as a result of Government Funded Research to enter into agreements with corporations to develop new drugs from those patents. The theory was that, the number of new drugs brought to the market would substantially increase beyond only the hundred or so that appeared each year. Unfortunately, the legislation did not have the desired effect. By the first decade of the 21st century, the number of annual NEW drugs being brought to market was under 30 and in 2010 was only 10. The cost of going through required trials for FDA drug approval has reached hundreds of millions of dollars, and most organizations cannot afford to even make the attempt. Even if a drug is very promising, the drug companies will not invest the money unless there are enough people suffering from the malady the drug treats and the medicine has to be taken for a long time as with chronic conditions. The system works poorly for the society and the health system. Reforms are needed.
The cost of health care had become so great that many people—especially those on fixed incomes were not able to afford the costs. The majority of all bankruptcies in America are caused by a family medical problem.
Others while conceding that corporate involvement accounted for the extremely high costs of American pharmaceuticals and medical devices and equipment, argue that the companies have produced many innovations in addition to the research the government has paid for, and would not agree with Washington that the involvement was all “disastrous.”
Although extremely conservative, Paul was opposed to giving corporations a cut of economic activity just to say that it was private and not public of government run. The corporate HMOs and managed care organizations claimed that they are performing a quality control and money saving service, but there were non profit organizations that performed the functions just as well and did not add on a profit fee for themselves,
Observation of the number of pharmaceutical companies that raised the price over by huge percentages on one or more of their high selling, life preserving drugs. There were some who claimed that there was a plan by the pharmaceutical industry to take advantage of the fact that certain drugs were necessary to preserve life. The quotation however was an excellent description of how the general public makes decisions about many aspects of economics, crime, corruption, and many other aspects of our society. The principle not only seems to generally hold for negative things but also positives such as whether a government program is working or whether a company innovates great products.
Harriet A. Washington is an American writer and medical ethicist. She is the author of the book Medical Apartheid, which won the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
