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Bottom line: pharma sells pills to make money; they don't make money off of healthy people who don't take their pills. So long as we link the health industry to

by braink 7y ago

Bottom line: pharma sells pills to make money; they don't make money off of healthy people who don't take their pills. So long as we link the health industry to making profit, we are prioritizing profits over health.

skookumchuck 7y ago
Profits are what drives innovation in pharmaceuticals.
- sametmax 7y ago
  Profit didn't get us vaccine against rabies or acetylsalicylic acid. Researchers did, and we have universities for that. So there are alternatives, and probably others we didn't think about.
  - skookumchuck 7y ago
    It was profit-seeking Bayer that found a way to make aspirin in an industrial process and put it in wide use. "In 1897, scientists at the drug and dye firm Bayer began investigating acetylsalicylic acid as a less-irritating replacement for standard common salicylate medicines, and identified a new way to synthesize it.[2]:69–75 By 1899, Bayer had dubbed this drug Aspirin and was selling it around the world." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aspirin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aspirin
- bandushrew 7y ago
  That is a truism, right? Currently in the US we have private pharmaceutical companies driven by a profit motive, so profits are what drives their innovation. Setup a different system, and other motivations will drive their innovation, right? Unless your claim is that innovation can only EVER be driven by profit?
  - fastball 7y ago
    I thing the argument is more along the lines of: 1. Observed value drives innovation. 2. Profit / profit-motive is one of the most straightforward / most efficient means we have to observe value.
    - Swenrekcah 7y ago
      You’re probably right and my counter argument would be: 1. Human [curiosity, desire, necessity] drives innovation. 2. Profit mandate suppresses most of those innovations by promoting the few money making ideas (however beneficial or harmful they may be).
      - fastball 7y ago
        I think the issue with that response is that [curiosity, desire, necessity] are all just specific versions of "observed value" which you are then applying to oneself. Sure, you'll have a lot of innovation if everyone is trying to satisfy their own curiosity, desire, or necessity. But you'll drive far more innovation if you have individuals who are also concerned with satisfying those needs for other people. And the easiest proxy for "someone else desires or needs this" is pricing mechanisms. Luckily, the internet / better communication methods are making it much easier to determine what is valuable to others without pricing mechanisms, but I would argue that profit motive is still the most effective method.
        Swenrekcah 7y ago
        Yeah, I mostly agree. Profit motive is not a terrible method on average. I just get a bit worked up when I encounter any variant of “a corporations only duty is to create shareholder value”. :)
      - skookumchuck 7y ago
        Curiosity does not provide funding in the quantities needed. Nor does it allocate resources towards maximizing the benefit to the maximum number of people.
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  Yes but it also skews the incentives. The cure for diabetes has little meaning to pharmas. They want to keep people alive but paying for rest of their lives. That's how money shape commercial research
  - reallydude 7y ago
    > The cure for diabetes has little meaning to pharmas Unless you're the first to cure. The income, grants, and knowledge drain in your favor? People will continue to get diabetes and a treatment will cure it.
  - skookumchuck 7y ago
    > The cure for diabetes has little meaning to pharmas 1. ABC develops an effective treatment for diabetes, but you have to take it for life. 2. DEF develops a cure for diabetes. Which one do you think is going to make more money? The only way ABC can make money is if a cure cannot be developed, or ABC somehow convinced the government to ban DEF's cure. Your theory reminds me of the 1970s when everyone was sure that 100 mpg carburetors existed but the oil companies bought up all the patents for it so they could sell more gas.
calvinv 7y ago
That's not entirely true, a lot of the research comes from passionate students trying to make the world a better place with no intention of keeping you sick. Additionally almost every industry is profit motivated, we wouldn't have the brightest people going into medicine unless it paid well. Ironically it doesn't actually pay well enough
fauigerzigerk 7y ago
Making a profit on pills is just one motivation in a very complex system of competing motivations, incentives and regulations that shape what "we" prioritise. I think drawing conclusions from one specific motivation in isolation is too simplistic. Many other profit interests benefit greatly from a healthy population that doesn't spend all its money on useless pills. And motivations other than profit, both personal and political, are very powerful as well. I don't think there is much evidence that eliminating the profit motivation leads to better results in general -- on the contrary. But there is a lot of evidence from Europe that health systems with public buyer cartels can achieve the same or better health outcomes far cheaper than in the US. Although some say that sky high US drug prices effectively subsidise those European outcomes.
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> pharma sells pills to make money; they don't make money off of healthy people who don't take their pills But insurance companies do. American healthcare is a complex system of highly-incentivized agents. Zooming in on a single component as a synecdoche is like trying to reason how a car works by extrapolating from a fuel injector.
hjk05 7y ago
It’s a very limited view on any industry to think that profits and greater good cannot coexist. You say the pharma industry just makes pills so they can extract profits. The researchers at those companies who dedicate their lives in persuit of treatments for the benefits of patient would say we only make money so we can make new treatments. That’s just semantics in the end. But it’s foolish to think that just because some endeavor is profitable is must be immoral.
skookumchuck 7y ago
> we are prioritizing profits over health. A cure for Hepatitis C was developed by profit-seeking companies. Be careful what you're willing to throw away.

by braink 7y ago

skookumchuck 7y ago

Profits are what drives innovation in pharmaceuticals.

sametmax 7y ago
Profit didn't get us vaccine against rabies or acetylsalicylic acid. Researchers did, and we have universities for that. So there are alternatives, and probably others we didn't think about.
- skookumchuck 7y ago
  It was profit-seeking Bayer that found a way to make aspirin in an industrial process and put it in wide use. "In 1897, scientists at the drug and dye firm Bayer began investigating acetylsalicylic acid as a less-irritating replacement for standard common salicylate medicines, and identified a new way to synthesize it.[2]:69–75 By 1899, Bayer had dubbed this drug Aspirin and was selling it around the world." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aspirin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aspirin
bandushrew 7y ago
That is a truism, right? Currently in the US we have private pharmaceutical companies driven by a profit motive, so profits are what drives their innovation. Setup a different system, and other motivations will drive their innovation, right? Unless your claim is that innovation can only EVER be driven by profit?
- fastball 7y ago
  I thing the argument is more along the lines of: 1. Observed value drives innovation. 2. Profit / profit-motive is one of the most straightforward / most efficient means we have to observe value.
  - Swenrekcah 7y ago
    You’re probably right and my counter argument would be: 1. Human [curiosity, desire, necessity] drives innovation. 2. Profit mandate suppresses most of those innovations by promoting the few money making ideas (however beneficial or harmful they may be).
    - fastball 7y ago
      I think the issue with that response is that [curiosity, desire, necessity] are all just specific versions of "observed value" which you are then applying to oneself. Sure, you'll have a lot of innovation if everyone is trying to satisfy their own curiosity, desire, or necessity. But you'll drive far more innovation if you have individuals who are also concerned with satisfying those needs for other people. And the easiest proxy for "someone else desires or needs this" is pricing mechanisms. Luckily, the internet / better communication methods are making it much easier to determine what is valuable to others without pricing mechanisms, but I would argue that profit motive is still the most effective method.
      - Swenrekcah 7y ago
        Yeah, I mostly agree. Profit motive is not a terrible method on average. I just get a bit worked up when I encounter any variant of “a corporations only duty is to create shareholder value”. :)
    - skookumchuck 7y ago
      Curiosity does not provide funding in the quantities needed. Nor does it allocate resources towards maximizing the benefit to the maximum number of people.
saiya-jin 7y ago
Yes but it also skews the incentives. The cure for diabetes has little meaning to pharmas. They want to keep people alive but paying for rest of their lives. That's how money shape commercial research
- reallydude 7y ago
  > The cure for diabetes has little meaning to pharmas Unless you're the first to cure. The income, grants, and knowledge drain in your favor? People will continue to get diabetes and a treatment will cure it.
- skookumchuck 7y ago
  > The cure for diabetes has little meaning to pharmas 1. ABC develops an effective treatment for diabetes, but you have to take it for life. 2. DEF develops a cure for diabetes. Which one do you think is going to make more money? The only way ABC can make money is if a cure cannot be developed, or ABC somehow convinced the government to ban DEF's cure. Your theory reminds me of the 1970s when everyone was sure that 100 mpg carburetors existed but the oil companies bought up all the patents for it so they could sell more gas.

calvinv 7y ago

That's not entirely true, a lot of the research comes from passionate students trying to make the world a better place with no intention of keeping you sick. Additionally almost every industry is profit motivated, we wouldn't have the brightest people going into medicine unless it paid well. Ironically it doesn't actually pay well enough

fauigerzigerk 7y ago

Making a profit on pills is just one motivation in a very complex system of competing motivations, incentives and regulations that shape what "we" prioritise. I think drawing conclusions from one specific motivation in isolation is too simplistic. Many other profit interests benefit greatly from a healthy population that doesn't spend all its money on useless pills. And motivations other than profit, both personal and political, are very powerful as well. I don't think there is much evidence that eliminating the profit motivation leads to better results in general -- on the contrary. But there is a lot of evidence from Europe that health systems with public buyer cartels can achieve the same or better health outcomes far cheaper than in the US. Although some say that sky high US drug prices effectively subsidise those European outcomes.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> pharma sells pills to make money; they don't make money off of healthy people who don't take their pills But insurance companies do. American healthcare is a complex system of highly-incentivized agents. Zooming in on a single component as a synecdoche is like trying to reason how a car works by extrapolating from a fuel injector.

hjk05 7y ago

It’s a very limited view on any industry to think that profits and greater good cannot coexist. You say the pharma industry just makes pills so they can extract profits. The researchers at those companies who dedicate their lives in persuit of treatments for the benefits of patient would say we only make money so we can make new treatments. That’s just semantics in the end. But it’s foolish to think that just because some endeavor is profitable is must be immoral.

skookumchuck 7y ago

> we are prioritizing profits over health. A cure for Hepatitis C was developed by profit-seeking companies. Be careful what you're willing to throw away.