Posted on 01/14/2018 9:55:41 AM PST by Kaslin
‘What about other countries?’
interesting you mention that...when my mother was suffering her fatal bout of ovarian cancer, her doctor explained to us that the US standard of treatment was a cocktail of two chemo drugs (Taxil and Carboplatin, for instance) but the UK standard was one drug...this, he stated with no equivocation, was done for monetary purposes...
he put her on one drug, Carboplatin, known to exhibit fewer side effects; it helped not at all, but at least she didn’t pauper herself and go around looking deathly ill for a period of time...
So she was given a drug that was useless?
‘So she was given a drug that was useless?’
not useless; just not effective for her, and she elected to not go the heavier cocktail route...carboplatin has worked as intended for scores of people, with the added benefit of fewer ghastly side effects, but it obviously is not a magic potion, nothing is...
Thank you, W Tell... YOu beat me to it.
Also Teddy Bear’s statement that I (and you) are defending socialism is a bit off mark.
When is defending private property rights considered to be “socialism?” That’s a stretch.
So even considering this case where the company bought the rights to the drug, I’m not defending socialism.
Tell me about the ripoff known as CPAP supplies.
That is not capitalism no matter what you want to tell yourself.
Reading more now. So an FDA approved supplier is now making it so ...
For anyone else who is interested. I am not sure what holds the patent yet.
This sounds like a scam to me. Maybe legal but a scam all the same. Be interesting to know what a compounding pharmacy would charge to make it.
Fair comment, however I see you’re no longer claiming I’m “defending socialism.” There is nothing socialist about defending private property rights. Socialism is all about “the collective” vs the individual (in this case, a company is the “individual.”
As you say, defending patents is not pure capitalism and I tend to agree, but there are other interesting viewpoints that state that patents (or drug patent protection) have the attributes of personal property.
In addition consider that you own your house too, right? Is that a monopoly on the ownership of your house, protected by the government issuing you title to the property and enforced by the police if someone wants to start living in your house? Does that mean it’s socialism? Does that mean home ownership is not a capitalist concept?
https://hallingblog.com/2009/05/31/the-myth-that-patents-are-a-monopoly/
The definition I use for a monopoly is from Wikipedia. Those economists who use the phrase “monopoly power” have to admit that every property right confers some monopoly power. This leads to the nonsense that every property right is a monopoly.
Historically the concept of monopoly comes from England’s Statute of Monopolies. This statue limited government power, but did not limit private property rights. Patents are private property rights. The statute 35 U.S.C. 261 states patents have the attributes of personal property. The system of recording patents, the ability to license and assign patents, and the nonpolitical process or granting patent rights are the attributes of property. Monopolies (as defined in the Statue of Monopolies) are issued by politicians for markets, not specific embodiments of products. There is no such thing as designing around a monopoly. The Sherman Antitrust Act turned the whole concept of monopolies on its head. The Sherman Antitrust Act limits the ability of private citizens to use private property. This is the exact opposite of the Statute of Monopolies which limited government’s (the crown) power.
If you use the political language of “monopoly power”, you end up in the absurd situation of suggesting that all private property is monopoly power. I reject this as illogical position as an attempt to destroy private property by Marxists.
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