[Gllug] Patents *again*

[Matthew Cooke]

Peter,

I am not entirely unsympathetic to your view. However, I think that the 
statement that "medical patents are killing people" is an over 
simplification of the problem.

It's a well established argument for example that if there was not some 
level of protection for the companies that produce the drugs, many drugs on 
the market today might not have been developed. No one would spend billions 
researching something if some startup can clone the drugs as soon as it 
passes the trials.

I think the problem is more complicated than simply "medical patents being 
bad".

Western society mainly consists of capitalist-democracies. At a national 
level the democratic aspects are suppose to keep the capitalist aspects in 
check. This doesn't always work so great, but does provide some level of 
protection, for example we potect drug companies drugs but we put in a 
safety net of the NHS in this country so that people who can't afford drugs 
can (somtimes) get them.
Unfortunately capitalism has for some time been opperating at a global level 
outside of the normal checks and balances. Microsoft is too big and powerful 
for the EU or US to keep in check and a similar problem occurs in many 
industries/cartels for example the music industry, the tobbaco industry, the 
oil companies and of course the drug companies. All of these companies are 
opperating on a global basis, but there is no global democratic body in 
place to say that we should offer HIV drugs to africans at cost price or 
free, for the good of the world.

Multinationals are playing the long game, they continue to lobby whilst 
political parties in various countries come and go. They can also attempt to 
export some of the most anti-consumer laws from the US across other 
countries and the EU. They can also avoid national minimum wage laws, safety 
regulation and unions by outsourcing to third world countries and in some 
cases even exploit the lack of law and order to threaten and kill people 
that get in their way. Some of these same multinationals win 'best business' 
awards and are covered in the "FTSE-for-good" index and they have been known 
to offer lucrative directorships to high profile x-politicians.

Where am I going with this? Well I'm not really going anywhere, I've just 
had a couple of glasses of wine. But I suppose my point is that medical 
patents are only a small part of the problem and are certainly not the 
underlying cause of the worlds ills.

Regards,
Matt.


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