5 ms·
I don't see why they shouldn't be able to make a fair profit.
by postingawayonhn 6y ago
I don't see why they shouldn't be able to make a fair profit.
- alephu5 6y agoWhen things go the other way, society doesn't let them make a fair loss.
- evandijk70 6y agoThere are currently 54 vaccines being tested on humans. Getting the necessary data to obtain approval for human testing requires a lot of funding. Testing on humans requires a lot of funding. In the end, maybe 4 vaccines will be used. Do you think the companies that produced and tested the ~50 vaccines that will not be used will get their investment back?
- PunchTornado 6y agoyes, all of these vaccine research are funded by the taxpayer.
- bobcostas55 6y ago[citation needed]
- madaxe_again 6y agoI don’t see why it’s any different to war profiteering. Legal, yes - moral, debatable.
- HPsquared 6y agoExcept for how, you know, weapons and medicines have slightly different effects when used.
- guipsp 6y agoWell, only to the extent that you distinguish killing someone via weapons and just letting them die via preventable disease.
- dri_ft 6y agoWith weapons, it costs money to kill someone; with medicine, it costs money to save them.
- guipsp 6y agoOnly to the extent that you don't value human life. If you value human life, then you'll see that both have costs associated.
- dash2 6y agoThis isn't responding to the OP's point, which was that war profiteering (making money by providing weapons to kill people) is morally different from selling vaccines (making money by providing medicines to save people's lives).
- guipsp 6y agoI'm not sure I follow? Profiteering off of healthcare has a cost, in terms of people not cared for due to various market reasons.
- tomhoward 6y agoI'm very familiar with the perverse outcomes that emanate from profit-driven medical research, having been personally affected by illnesses that the mainstream medical science community sees no incentive to invest in. But the reasons and ethics of the system being the way it is are separate from the reality of what it is for the purposes of getting things done in the here and now. For better or worse, as things stand right now, pharmaceutical companies, like other companies, need to make profits - or at the very least avoid crippling losses - in order to survive and continue doing their work. That includes covering the formidable costs of the many research studies that go nowhere and yield no revenues. I'm sure you wouldn't find a single person in a pharmaceutical company who would feel good about withholding treatment from any person with a life threatening illness. But what they also have to care about is remaining in business so they can treat and cure many more people with serious illnesses.
- pizza234 6y agoPharmaceutical corporations are not exactly well known to seek "fair" profits. Practically speaking, I suppose a hypothetical scenario could be that the: - the companies are granted patents - the vaccine lasts for a limited amount of time - before each patent expiry they companies make minor modifications (say, storage temperature requirement decreased by half a degree) - the company make "unfair" profits by extending the oligopoly for a very long amount of time I'm not stating that this will happen, but on the other hand, I find this plausible.
- drran 6y agoIt looks like a huge opportunity! Start your own pharmaceutical company and disrupt these bastards! You found the problem, now bring the solution.
- guipsp 6y agoUnfortunately, this area has a very high start up cost, which limits disruption. This is the big problem when people say "just disrupt". In addition, the aforementioned patents prevent disruption. Even long after the original patent expires.
- tcptomato 6y agowhat's you definition of fair? What the market would bear?