Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

[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

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

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

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.

[Odar]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

The analogy with food is not correct. There are different types of food indeed, but, say, Chinese noodles are Chinese noodles, no need to have 450 different brands of the same thing right? People almost always judge a product from its package, whereas its taste - or in case of medications - its active principles are more or less the same. If we take it for good that a certain chemical compound/xxxxtail is supposed to have this and that effect on the average human being, then let's have just one product, the one that works best, and that's it.
Also, it's not researchers and chemists who profit the most from the marketing of a product - it's who runs the firm they're working for. Hence, they should still receive a salary like any other worker, and maybe an even better one once the buck doesn't get wasted in CEO bonuses, advertising, and legal counseling should smth "go wrong" And of course more funds would then be available for serious research on treatments and not just on palliatives, and on sensible information campaigns for the public - not the rather terroristic ones we see now :/

[KanadaHye]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

Capitalism in concept sounds good but it's all just a fake system where the corruption is concealed from the general public. The idea of investing in companies which is supposed to allow people to own commodities and/or a stake in the company sounds like the most fair way that you can share the profits. Also if you work for a medical company, you'd work harder seeing that if your company does well, the shares would do well and you'd benefit from the labour. The flaw is that your rights to say something like a cure to a disease would belong to the company since you are their employee. Now why would I work hard to develop something only to see someone else benefit?

[Tali]

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.

Not so easy... For which demographic? for which race? Some diseases discriminate. Whose society? People generally don't care about cures because they want the symptoms to go away. If it's not bothering them, they learn to tolerate whatever it is they have (ie: our asthma). As for those people that do care, when you go to ask them for money they shy away from you. (I was a fundraiser.. got firsthand experience on that one ) People live in a perpetual state of denial. Everyone thinks "it won't be me." This is assuming people even find the cure. How many "cures" have we really found to date? I wouldn't say so much the power, I'd say the willingness isn't.

The analogy with food is not correct. There are different types of food indeed, but, say, Chinese noodles are Chinese noodles, no need to have 450 different brands of the same thing right? People almost always judge a product from its package, whereas its taste - or in case of medications - its active principles are more or less the same. If we take it for good that a certain chemical compound/xxxxtail is supposed to have this and that effect on the average human being, then let's have just one product, the one that works best, and that's it.

I think you missed my point. I was saying food. You gave me a perfect example. You chose a specific type of food: Chinese noodles. Chinese noodles are grains. What else are grains? Cereal, bread, etc. We have a variety of food that still gives you the same nutrients that your body needs. So the point I was making was that we could pretty much live off of austronaut food - which though isn't very appetizing, does give you what you need to survive. Astronaut food is typically considered "the best;" at giving you the essentials. So really, to stay in line with the idea of medicine simplisticism, we'd all be eating astronaut food.

Also, it's not researchers and chemists who profit the most from the marketing of a product - it's who runs the firm they're working for. Hence, they should still receive a salary like any other worker, and maybe an even better one once the buck doesn't get wasted in CEO bonuses, advertising, and legal counseling should smth "go wrong" And of course more funds would then be available for serious research on treatments and not just on palliatives, and on sensible information campaigns for the public - not the rather terroristic ones we see now :/

agreed.
however, a lot of the commercials' point is to make people aware of medicine to ask their doctor about and "see if it is right" for them. I'd rather have these temporary patches than none while waiting for a cure that may or may not come. There actually was a time when medicine was not allowed to air commercials.

Capitalism in concept sounds good but it's all just a fake system where the corruption is concealed from the general public. The idea of investing in companies which is supposed to allow people to own commodities and/or a stake in the company sounds like the most fair way that you can share the profits. Also if you work for a medical company, you'd work harder seeing that if your company does well, the shares would do well and you'd benefit from the labour. The flaw is that your rights to say something like a cure to a disease would belong to the company since you are their employee. Now why would I work hard to develop something only to see someone else benefit?

Hmm... you described two different things: employees and shareholders. When working for a company, you are not automatically a shareholder. You still have to buy the "stock." It is the shareholders who get a vote in what the company does... but the point of shareholding is to make a profit when they're doing well. If the company is doing poorly, you lose money.

As for your last question, that's interesting. Many researchers don't have the disease they're researching on. Some are researchers because it was the available job. They're just there to get their paycheck. So, your question also applies: Now why would I work hard to develop something only to see someone else benefit? They won't get a payraise for finding the cure. The company will get the credit.

[retro]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

There is also incentive to get $$$ for stuff like cure for cancer, and say we still haven't found the cure for it when they might have... you get the point

If you get cancer you are pretty much done for and it's a really horrible thing. A cousin of mine is an Oncology Nurse and she was telling me that maybe nine out of ten people, who she threats don't make it.

[Haykakan]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

Tali I don't think you are grasping this concept very well. There are a few diseases today which already effect or will in the future effect most of the population. Cancer, heart disease, stroke are things that almost everyone will get unless cures are found therefore we are all afeected and would want cures to these diseases. It is not as complicated as you are making it out. The search for cures is driven by the self interest of the population not the profitability for pharma (idealy).

[Tali]

Re: Drugs and Treatments in todays capitalist markets

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I understood what you're saying. But from a healthcare profession standpoint that I have, I see it differently. For instance, stroke is not a disease. Heart disease is usually linked to more genetic-based. Cancer has so many different forms. There's breast cancer, colon cancer, 'blood' cancers, and so many more. Some of these are more common say, in America versus Canada, or Africa, China, and so forth. Drugs are an international market; so 'picking a cure' would be interesting. Not impossible, but interesting because the type of diet people have, the type of exercise necessary to live in various societies will affect what kind of diseases they are prone to. For instance, the plague was in Europe, not Asia.