Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

[Haykakan]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

Which disease to research cures for is easy to decide. You start with the ones afflicting the most people and doing the most damage. You research to find cures for whatever ails society the most. People do care about cures - even if you do not have heart disease or cancer you should still care about finding cures because chances are you will have them later and your family and friends will to. Yes there will be less choices but you will get what you need and there will be actual cures to serious problems instead of treatments which never fix anything. The answers are all there its the power to make things happen that is not.

[Tali]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

I wasn't attempting to say that only communism has the ideology of working for the greater good. I was saying that it was one of communism's ideals; since we were specifically discussing capitalism vs. communism and not all of socialism and its various sects.

The question still remains where we would get the revenue. If I'm reading you correctly, you're suggesting allocate money from competiting medicine companies (such as all the various ones focusing on ibuprofin) and focus it on cures instead of developing different lines for the same product. Correct?

Assuming I read you right, the only problem with that is that we don't know which is the best of the various ones. People have preferences. They have a natural adversion to sticking to "one thing" to do the job. The best example is food. There are a ton of various foods, ethnic or not. But what is the purpose of food? We PREFER it to taste good, but all it really has to do is give us the nutrients we need to survive.
But let us presume for a moment that we did pick one product to reign supreme. Now with all that money, we throw it at finding a cure. Now the problem becomes, how do we get everyone who has the knowledge to work on this project, do it for greater good? As we already know, many people don't care about a cure (usually the only ones that do are the ones who have the disease, or knows someone very close to them with it). Even before this, there's the problem of which cure to work on first? Which disease takes precedence? If we try to say we'll work on the cures all at once by dividing the money equally, there would be so small an amount that we wouldn't meet the monetary needs to even host the research.

Ok. No one I say it to will know who you are, but I'll cite you anyway

[Haykakan]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

Working for the greater good does not mean your a communist. Many forms of socialism work for the greater good but are hardly communists. I never implied not using money. Money was around long before capitalism.
Getting to the point now. Pharmacuitical companies spend tons of money to make yet another cholesterol reducing med or a new chemo treatment .... Now imagine if even half of that money which is essentially waisted was used to work on a cure for heart disease or cancer. I say waisted because most of the "options" we have with drugs are redundent-meaning they all do the same thing. Like how many brands of ibuprofin there are out on the market? My point is that the resources which are used in creating variety of pills which do the same thing are waisted when they could be used to find cures (or anything else more productive}. Money has been used in almost all societies {including cumminists} but the way it is used is the difference i am trying to point out.
Yes you can borrow my foreplay analogy but you have to cite me when using it lol.

[Tali]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

Capitalism is like foreplay that never gets to the point.

I love this. Can I borrow it? I'd like to use it when describing capitalism

As I mentioned earlier, my boyfriend calls me a capitalist since he's a communist. I like the ideology of some of communism; like the one you picked up on: working towards the greater good than for profit.

Yet, I haven't seen a government that actually implements the ideals well. In other words, the idea of communism is not a bad one. However, I also don't see it as a practical one. I love the idea, but I don't think it'd work (so much corruption is too easy as we've seen in other countries using communism). I'm not going to suggest capitalism is better. I am suggesting I don't see how communism will benefit the medical field.

Yes, we're saying that if people went looking for cures for the good of all instead of to turn a profit. However, what about all the material? If we follow the chain to who built what, down to where they harvested their materials to make such things, and on and on... we'll see that it's money that is "cold" towards others. You either pay for it, or you don't. If you don't, you don't get the stuff, and if you do, then you get the stuff. Going back to medicine now then, since we'd have to pay for all the material necessary to search for the cure (which gets really, really expensive), where is that revenue generated from? Even if we were to ask for the material from another communist country, something tells me we would still have to pay for it. Why? Because money is still a necessary evil. The world today is not the Hanseatic League that it used to be. Even back then, currency was still used.

Love the idea, not practical.

[Haykakan]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

That person i mentioned earlier who has cancer just got some bad news. It turns out modern medicine can do a detailed genetic analysis of the the cancer cells. This analysis reviels the nature of thee cancer (how quikly is it likely to progress, chances of beating it..). She was told that the type of luchemia she has gives her 10% chance of winning and that is if a proper bone merrow donner is found (which in her case is unlikely since hers is geneticaly rare type). I think this is a perfect example of what i have been saying about our medical system. The test they did on her can be done to anyone with this cancer so it generates revanue. Sixty years ago such a test was purely science fiction. My point is that look at the progress we made at testing and realize that it was made because it generated revanue. At the same time there is no progress at all for finding a cure during that same 60 year period. This is no isoated event, this is more the case thea the exception. If people are not going to be paid to find cures then hardly any will be found. Tali i am glad you brought up capitalist vs communist idea earlier and i will use the difference in systemic ideology to illustrate my point. We have all seen what the medical system is like under communism-whatever is profitable progresses while other things are neglected. Under communism profit is replaced by the greater societal good as the driving force behind research. The difference in motivation allowes medicine under communism to adress the root of the problem instead of dancing its way around it and making as much money possible off of it. Under capitalism the resources are put to use to generate profits not cures. I cant help but think that with all the revolutions going on in the world in the country that needs revolution the most people are quietly sitting at home watching tv while eating hotpockets then popping a pepcid (or any other treatment from a huge variety of choices) or two. Capitalism is like foreplay that never gets to the point.

[Tali]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

i should've used quotes. my second comment was directed at Haykakan.

however, that's good to know. i'll try that sometime

[KanadaHye]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

My bf's communist. I'm capitalist i suppose. that's what he tells me anyway

it doesn't explain why i got mine at age..6 and you got yours at age 30.

I got mine at age 12 and it went away by 20. I pretty much just started exercising regularly and meditating whenever I had the urge to wheeze or cough. The steroid inhalers worked well during its onset.

[Tali]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

My bf's communist. I'm capitalist i suppose. that's what he tells me anyway

it doesn't explain why i got mine at age..6 and you got yours at age 30.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

They have cut the doctors share of the profits and added it to insurance companies. As for the reason why bronchioles get enflamed, it is not complicated to figure out. Like many other enflamation proccesses the reason is our bodies immune responce. In the case of asthma our immune system is responding to something it doesn't like in the lungs. Different things can cause this responce, things like allorgens or other foreighn debree-even stress. We know why it exists, but no one is looking for the cure and thousends are looking for a treating symptoms.

What's worse is they are giving inhalers to toddlers now due to coughs. At least when you're an adult you can understand if something is working or not but infants can't.

[Haykakan]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

They have cut the doctors share of the profits and added it to insurance companies. As for the reason why bronchioles get enflamed, it is not complicated to figure out. Like many other enflamation proccesses the reason is our bodies immune responce. In the case of asthma our immune system is responding to something it doesn't like in the lungs. Different things can cause this responce, things like allorgens or other foreighn debree-even stress. We know why it exists, but no one is looking for the cure and thousends are looking for a treating symptoms.