US puts Thailand on its watch list

[bibblies]

Yep, Internet warriors.

 

No, Fidel - I don't buy copied software from Panthip and install it on my laptop. I'm a software developer. If I really need a Microsoft product that costs money, I'll buy it. If I don't want to pay the money, I will look for a cheaper or free alternatives.

 

In fact, this is another area where people are total fuckheads ( ), saying 'But I have to have Microsoft Office blah blah' when there are perfectly acceptable free or cheap alternatives. (I know because I use them. OpenOffice, etc. There's a perfectly usable free or cheaper version of everything that they steal.)

 

I don't disagree that people in the third world should be given access to cheaper AIDS medicine (I'm on a mongers board, ffs. I have a definite self-interest in this!)

 

The point is, with these medicines, is:

 

WHO PAYS FOR THIS? Why should the burden fall unequally on the people who risk their time and money on drug discovery rather than everyone?

 

1. My version:

a) Companies and investors risk time and money on research (risk is the right word because most drug candidates are failures and it costs a lot of money to get through trials).

Some drugs make it through trials.

c) Governnments take taxes from ALL people so they can buy these drugs to distribute to third-world places that can't afford them.

d) People who want to give even more can, through charities who use their money to buy the companies's drugs. The companies would probably offer drugs at a lower costs for good publicity reasons (they've been doing this for years already).

 

2. Your version.

a) Companies risk time and money but have most profit taken off them because, after all, they 'make enough money anyway'.

People see this and find more profitable areas to invest their money in.

c) Some other intelligent people who would have worked in these areas see there's not enough money in the industry to support the same standard of living as they'd get in doing law, accountancy, investment banking or other careers.

d) Result: fewer companies, fewer talented people working in the industry, less money spent looking for cures, fewer research programs, fewer drugs discovered and produced.

e) Result: more people die.

 

I suspect you'd prefer it the second way, with more people dying, as long as it meant someone wasn't making a profit.

 

You must do. Because, in the real world, that's what happens.

 

The Soviet Union, Cuba, China, North Korea or the Eastern Bloc: I don't think any of those countries have discovered ANY meaningful drugs that have saved millions of lives like the Western capitalist drug companies you so despise.

 

If I'm wrong, give me the totals of drugs discovered and lives saved by these countries compared to the figures for the capitalist drug companies in these spaces here:

 

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

 

To sum up then,

1. You've got no valid point.

2. Anyone who believes in socialism is an idiot and cares more about spiteing rich people than saving lives.

3. I'm wasting my time even arguing with such people when I could be having a wank instead.

 

 

[bust]

 

1. My version:

a) Companies and investors risk time and money on research (risk is the right word because most drug candidates are failures and it costs a lot of money to get through trials).

That's a bit of a stretch bibblies. They acually risk fuck all. Most R&D in pharmaceuticals is done so for the generous tax breaks on offer. In todays global economy everything is done to maximise profit. There is usually minimum risk involved.

[Fidel]

"If I really need medicine that costs money, I'll buy it. If I don't want to pay the money (or don't have any), I will look for cheaper or free alternatives. If there aren't any, I will die"

 

Why AM I arguing with you? Jesus, you already know everything about me. You can even read my mind and present my own argument more clearly than I can! F**k this is eerie.

 

I'll leave you to your wank. Have fun!

 

 

 

 

[bibblies]

You're the one who brought software into it and that fact that you prefer to play around stupidly trying to twist things (it's fooling few people here, I think), rather than answering the question, says it all about you.

 

Once again (for the third or fourth time ), answer the question:

 

Why should the people who go out of their way to risk their time, effort and money discovering drugs disproportionately shoulder the burden of paying for charity rather than everyone equally?

 

It's a simple reasonable question. If you still avoid it, I suggest that while I'm the one having a wank, you're the

[Paillote]

"If I really need medicine that costs money, I'll buy it. If I don't want to pay the money (or don't have any), I will look for cheaper or free alternatives. If there aren't any, I will die"

 

 

Since you seem to like word twisting, here is the Thai version:

 

"I really need medicine that costs money, but I rather buy myself a new watch. If I don't want to pay the money (which I have), I will rather copy it for free."

 

This is what Thailand basically are doing. The medicines they want to copy are not the normal AIDS medicines, but newly developed cures for the (comparatively) few which does not respond to the generic treatments. Thailand can afford it, but rather want to spend money on other things. That was not the intention of the agreement made and will benefit nobody in the long run.

 

I am just as opposed as any other about exploiting sick people. Having a scope longer than today has never hurt either.

 

Paillote

[pe7e]

The Soviet Union, Cuba, China, North Korea or the Eastern Bloc: I don't think any of those countries have discovered ANY meaningful drugs that have saved millions of lives like the Western capitalist drug companies you so despise.

 

China had 'Artemisinin' (the new malerial superdrug) years before the US copied it after the Chinese authorities of the day wouldn't copperate with them. But that's different when it's the west doing the copying isn't it?

A bit of a google around indicates Chinese pharmacuticl industry introduced 1339 original new drugs between 90 - 02 in the same period they copied 4300 drugs some under liscense almost certainly some not. Personally I see nothing wrong with the pharmacuticles making a decent profit, but they should not fuck sick people over to fill their already ample coffers. Sick people all over the world (including the UK and USA) are dying long before they need, due to restrictive practices by the big players.

 

 

[bibblies]

"Restrictive practices"?

 

What are they "restricting"? They're restricting nothing.

 

They're the ones who come up with ideas. They don't restrict anything other people care to try to come up with.

 

People who complain about those actually coming up with ideas are :thumbdown: imo and that's why I react badly to the lazy 'blame everyone else' arguments of people like Fidel.

 

Science is hard, finding drugs is difficult and risky (someone said it wasn't but they were talking in ignorance.) I think maybe around 5-10% of possible candidates might actually make it through expensive 3-phase trials that last years. And they're just candidates. Lots of biotechs go bust. Pharmas have not made great money for their investors compared to alternatives for years. Share prices are flat and you could have made more interest by putting money in virtually anything else. They're finding it difficult to attract people of calibre because everyone's going into law, banking, marketing and other easier careers. And on top of that, jump on the bandwagon socialists are giving them flak. )

 

As I don't see any meaningful drugs coming out of those socialist systems compared to what the profit-making companies produce, I think I prefer that system. :thumbup:

[pe7e]

I agree the pharmas have under performed the market for the last 4 years, and as I said before they do deserve a pricing structure and conditions that let them make a decent profit, but they should not be allowed to withold a life saving product that costs only pennys to produce from a market that can't afford the pounds they charge to buy them, just because distribution companies in the western countries illegally re-import them and reduce the market price of those drugs.

[bibblies]

I agree but in these cases we need to compensate them fairly for their work and initiative so that they are incentivised to keep producing drugs and so that the burden for does not fall on the very people we depend upon to find cures.

 

This means rich govermnents paying them a decent price out of tax payers contributions. Furthermore, people who wish to give even more can do so by charity. As I said before, drug companies are amenable to cutting cheaper deals in these cases.

 

This IS charity and it's dishonest and hypocritical of anyone to expect only other people (investors and workers in the drug industry) to pay for it while we carry on with our careers (in which we aren't even helping to discover drugs!)

 

The logic of "bad bad drug companies must pay" is so fucked and intellectually dishonest. I mean, people in poor countries are also dying because of lack of food. Yet we happily do charitable things like Live Aid to PAY for food to save them. We don't say "It's Walmart's fault. It's Kellogg's fault. Make them pay." In fact, in both cases - food and drugs - you can point to supposedly poor governments wasting resources on other things.

[bust]

Pharmaceutical companies are a short step behind the oil industry when it comes to profiteering. Roche saw net profit rise by a record 34 per cent to ($7.3 billion) last year due to strong sales of cancer treatment products.

It is the best result in the history of the Basel-based company and beats that of its local rival, Novartis, the world's fourth-largest pharmaceutical company. Roche announced this week that it is restructuring its research and development operations, but did not say if this would result in an increased R&D budget, currently running at ($4.84 billion) a year.

 

Instead, the evidence shows that such research may cost far less than $500 million for every new

drug â?? and may be less than $100 million for every new drug (including failed drugs). The

evidence also shows that the drug industry isnâ??t all that innovative, as it produces far more â??me-

tooâ? or copycat drugs of little medical importance than life-saving medicines.2 And, the evidence

suggests that drug industry research isnâ??t all that risky because the industry is awash in profits

while lightly taxed and heavily subsidized. In fact, an internal National Institutes of Health (NIH)

study obtained by Public Citizen shows that taxpayer-funded scientists and foreign universities

conducted 85 percent of the published research studies, tests and trials leading to the discovery

and development of five blockbuster drugs.3 Itâ??s no wonder the drug industry fought all the way

to the Supreme Court to keep its R&D records hidden from congressional investigators.

 

http://www.citizen.org/documents/ACFDC.PDF