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I don't agree at all. If the patent system didn't exist, there would be no companies with the capability to develop the vaccine. Because there's no profit motiv
by adam_arthur 5y ago
I don't agree at all. If the patent system didn't exist, there would be no companies with the capability to develop the vaccine. Because there's no profit motive.
The government would be willing to fund a vaccine, but there would be no capability to create it.
What is difficult to understand about that?
Do you think we could create a new vaccine within a year if there were no companies with multi billion dollar R&D teams?
Could we build iOS or Android if there were no software developers?
- stale2002 5y agoYou literally just said that the alternative is public funding.
- adam_arthur 5y agoAre you dense, or what? I very clearly laid out why, even if there were a will to publicly finance a covid vaccine, the capabilities to do so wouldn't exist in a world where pharmaceutical companies couldn't profit from R&D. You can't finance towards an outcome if you have no structural capability to reach it. You know, the last few hundred years biotech companies have spent developing the capacity, know how, ability to invent new drugs and vaccines? All of which was supported by a patent system allowing them to profit from their creations. What part of that is difficult to understand? Do I need to make it clearer somehow? Is it too challenging to understand the nuance of structural capability vs financing something in the moment?
- stale2002 5y agoI am not sure why you would say that the alternative is public funding, if you did not think that public funding was an alternative.