I remember in the early aughts I could get a bottle of Colchicine for four bucks. Thanks to that walleyed expression of human avarice, the 2006 United States Unapproved Drugs Initiative, it became someone's IP and - presto! - went to sixty bucks. So, well, sorry, guess you just gotta grunt your way through a crippling weeklong gout attack. Thanks a bundle. Lord knows, it's good to be made safe from a pharmaceutical invented three thousand years ago from a goddamn flower.
The root problem is US taxpayers should be directly paying for these studies to prove and disprove medicines, but apparently, the budget for that is not politically possible, and instead we have politicians giving away monopoly rights so the burden of the study will fall mostly on afflicted people who need the medicine.
It is crazy how there is so much crowing about high medicine prices, when the US already has world class research in the form of higher education facilities, and it could just officially research and develop medicines and put them in the public domain.
In case you're not kidding though, no. A politician who pisses off big business in America loses even the support of their own party.
The media ignores them, smears them, then grinds them into dust to make an example of them. Their social media pages are de-ranked, and an army of bots highlights their weak points while attacking their strong points.
Their opponents in every election get funded just enough to win, however much that is; even elections against others in their own party.
And if they're still somehow successful after all that, there's other, darker things that can happen.
It's even more depressing than that. Those who are on ballots are there because they've gotten Corporate America's stamp of approval. The ones who don't have said approval never make it on the ballots, and in the extremely infrequent case that they do (see Bernie Sanders) , they are there so corporate friendly politicians and media outlets can mock them as a subtle reminder to the rest of the country that the corporations own the country and it's not worth stepping out of line.
The politicians you get to vote for are propelled there by their connections iwth big businesses. The corruption is complete and voters play no role in policy change
The thing is that more often than not, that's not really how it works. While outright bribery does happen ("we may have a job opening after your term that you might be suitable for wink wink, nudge nudge") this is the exception rather than the rule.
Most of the power from these organisations is just from having politicians attention and ears: if you constant hear viewpoint A from people you like and respect and rarely or never hear opposing viewpoints, then, well, don't be surprised if politicians lean towards viewpoint A. This is basically what "lobbying" is. The problem is that talking to democratically elected representatives is a basic right, and not something you can (or, IMHO, should) take away.
What we do need is better representation of the public interest and balance things better, somehow...
> US taxpayers should be directly paying for these studies to prove and disprove medicines
I think you are right people should pay for it? I could pay for it, but who would run the study? Are they going to be efficient? Or is it going to be a waste of money? Could EU pick this up? They are trying to be a bastion of science.
Is it going to be efficient taxpayers pay via increased Medicare and health insurance costs to market/lobby and pay for profits a private company needs to gamble that much on developing a medicine, that may not even be that effective?
Drug companies have the second or third highest profits and profit margins after tech companies. Sounds like a lot of “efficiency” could be gained by taxpayers taking the risk of R&D themselves.
The EU is not close to being a global bastion of science by any measure relative to the US or China afaik. EU doesnt come close in terms of funding nor papers published nor any other measure that I could think of.
> it could just officially research and develop medicines and put them in the public domain
I don't think that's true. At least not for rare diseases. There are thousands of them and they impact very small populations. The current cost to develop a drug and get it through trials is > 1 billion dollars.
An obvious improvement is to just be OK when another serious regulator approved the drug too. If, say Europe or Australia calls it safe and effective, and the market is small, then approve with their study.
> An obvious improvement is to just be OK when another serious regulator approved the drug too. If, say Europe or Australia calls it safe and effective, and the market is small, then approve with their study.
I wish this were true, however history paints a different picture
I know, it is not going to help you a bit, but I want to share how it works in Germany and many other European countries. I happen to sometimes consult on managerial stuff in pharmaceutical circles in Europe, but I'm not a medical professional by any stretch of imagination.
Anyhow, in Germany there is something loosely translated as "traditional remedies", which are basically phyto-pharmaceuticals known for generations. If they match a few criteria, esp. clinical efficacy (ie. empirical proof, this is not homeopathy we are talking about), those are written down in a "book of remedies". Once written down in this book, the remedy can be produced by anyone. Most of them may only be sold in pharmacies and sometimes they are so potent and dangerous that they require prescriptions (Colchicine is easy to overdose, but does not require a prescription). By virtue of being public, your pharmacist could mix them up (most do not do this anymore), or they can be produced as generics -- and they are.
This sometimes creates weird situations. For example, there is a common stomach remedy best known under the trademark name "Iberogast". The traditional remedy is a concoction of nine herbs and written down as such. Now, a few decades ago independent studies showed that three of these nine herbs are basically contra-effective and should be removed. Doing that, however, creates a new remedy, which is not recorded in the book and therefore may not be produced freely.
The main producer of Iberogast, Bayer, went to great length to create a new, improved formula, with clinical trials and all that jazz. Obviously, Bayer has the exclusive rights to this improved formula before it can be written into the book of remedies again. It is selling it under the name of "Iberogast Advanced". You probably should prefer this "advanced" version, but you can still go to your pharmacist and get a "classic" concoction mixed up, or buy one of the generics.
Can you just buy the six herbs and combine them yourself?
Under American law, such a traditional (or innovative) remedy can be produced and sold by anyone. It would be an unregulated supplement instead of a regulated medicine. The effect is that doctors can't prescribe it.
Doctors are still free to tell you that you might be interested in independently obtaining and taking a supplement.
And suddenly the capitalist "free markets!" and "let the market decide"! are gone in favor of protectionism. It's a weird dystopian world where corporations get to roam free on the one side, but get to protect their own interests at the detriment of competition and the average people.
Modern pharmaceutical financials are the equivalent of taking hostages one-by-one and letting them pay for their lives. There is a fantastic book by Marcia Angell that details this.
