Peter Latham Quotes

This scientific quotation is politically important because it defines the difficult problem of setting acceptable and safe environmental and work standards for air or water quality and contact with potentially toxic substances. As this quotation illustrates, everything is toxic if given in large enough doses. Table salt can kill a human if enough if ingested. Tiny amounts of even a poison will do no harm. What makes setting of standards still more complicated is that human beings differ in the amount of a substance it would take to produce a toxic reaction. Allergies are the best example, but the variability of sensitivity always exists.

1st Baron Macaulay. This issue is still debated in America. Until the latter part of the 20th century, businesses could sell supposed medicines without any proof of efficacy or safety. The Government or others had to prove that there was something wrong with the product. Then, that shifted, and the burden of proof fell on the developer and seller of medicines as Macaulay favored, but sellers of vitamins and dietary supplements were exempted and operated under the previous American (anti Macaulay) position. Ironically, political opponents of requiring the drug company to prove safety and efficacy claimed that this was a radical new, untested idea that would inhibit development of medicinals. They did not realize that 150 years earlier, this was a standard, accepted point of view in England. Even into the 21st century, America operated with the inconsistent difference between vitamins and supplements, many of which have no beneficial effect whatsoever, and medicines.

Despite huge lobbying and political pressure, Dr. Kelsey would not sign off on the drug initially because she found information on her own about Thalidomide that the company, Merrell, must have known about and didn't reveal to her and her staff or in their applications. She was aware that the drug had been approved by England, Canada, and many nations of Europe, but she saw little data in the Merrell submissions and responses and that made her suspicious, and caused her to demand more. During the time the company was to submit more data, the reports of the deformed newborns were starting to come in from the countries that had approved the drug. When she gathered that information, she rejected the application and prevented thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of children to be born with missing limbs because their mothers had been treated with Thalidomide. In 1962 she was awarded the highest civilian medal by President John F. Kennedy.

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 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.

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.

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.

This principle justified the Government in allowing a local Indonesian company to manufacture anti-AIDS drugs without paying licensing rates demanded by the drug companies that held the patents. The principle is that patent rights and the desire to profit should not supersede the rights of people to continue to live because they cannot afford the drugs to keep them alive. The local manufacturers provide the drugs to the government at cost of manufacture which is a tiny proportion of the price the patent owner charges.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.