forget petroleum or water, it's going to be about drugs.

[ironymaiden]

a possible cure for AIDS and herpes, and influenza. i have a hard time believing this is true. i also have a feeling this drug could start wars. the research was paid for and the patents held by a US pharmaceutical company. if it does everything it has the potential to do, withholding it from people who can't afford to pay for it seems like murder.

as Grandma says, "we're getting too smart. these are the end times."

Comments

[ironymaiden]

...pay proportionate amounts of the R&D costs plus some kind of smallish financial reward to the drug company...
and there's the rub. pharmaceutical companies don't spend on R&D so that the miracle drug can be socialized. although in this case, i'm fascinated that it's happening at all, since we would be replacing years of daily intense drug therapy with a single dose, so this invention is not going to make big profits. you want a drug people have to take every day until they're dead, like insulin or cigarettes.
that innovation/profit relationship is why there's national (but not local)political pressure to keep me from ordering my drugs from Canada :/

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

If you look at the WIPO website, you'll find that there's already a small amount of this going on in the realm of AIDS drugs for sub-saharan Africa. So it wouldn't be entirely without precedent. I think they may have been banking on it as a cure for the common cold and other viral stuff. That will still be a moneymaker for quite a while since viruses can mutate pretty damn fast.

[pixxelpuss.livejournal.com]

Don't get me wrong though, WIPO is full of shit.