Are capitalist pharmaceutical companies holding the world to ransom?

[radiocaroline]

I was collecting for a local cancer charity at work the other day and when asking for a donation, a woman said to me that she would not be giving her money as cancer had been cured since 1928.

Thinking about it for the rest of my shift, I decided to look into it and look at other high profile illnesses that have been in the media over the years.

Could it be that cancer has been cured for years by the scientists of the world but capitalist pharmaceutical companies refuse to invest in a non-viable long term immunisation drug which would save the lives of thousands across the world who's lives and families are torn apart by the illness.

Instead of producing this long term drug which would lose them money on a massive scale they produce prescription-style drugs which a patient takes regularly for the rest of their life, thus turning the most unfortunate patient into an unconscious puppet of the capitalist system and the pharmaceutical companies as they have to ultimately consume or die. Allowing companies to make the most possible money out of drugs which morally could be produced to cure the world for good.

I know that people will argue that the use of procedures such as radiotherapy would provide a counter argument but I think this is a critical argument that does make you think about the amount of power that medical companies have in extorting the poor into death as they cannot afford expensive medication.

The curious part of you must think, that as well as medicine this must also apply to a lot of consumer products, particularly cosmetics. And ultimately the bounds of capitalism have become pretty much boundless.

It seems scientists should start uniting a resistance against these companies...

Thoughts everyone?

[Slavic]

I was collecting for a local cancer charity at work the other day and when asking for a donation, a woman said to me that she would not be giving her money as cancer had been cured since 1928.

Thinking about it for the rest of my shift, I decided to look into it and look at other high profile illnesses that have been in the media over the years.

Could it be that cancer has been cured for years by the scientists of the world but capitalist pharmaceutical companies refuse to invest in a non-viable long term immunisation drug which would save the lives of thousands across the world who's lives and families are torn apart by the illness.

Instead of producing this long term drug which would lose them money on a massive scale they produce prescription-style drugs which a patient takes regularly for the rest of their life, thus turning the most unfortunate patient into an unconscious puppet of the capitalist system and the pharmaceutical companies as they have to ultimately consume or die. Allowing companies to make the most possible money out of drugs which morally could be produced to cure the world for good.

I know that people will argue that the use of procedures such as radiotherapy would provide a counter argument but I think this is a critical argument that does make you think about the amount of power that medical companies have in extorting the poor into death as they cannot afford expensive medication.

The curious part of you must think, that as well as medicine this must also apply to a lot of consumer products, particularly cosmetics. And ultimately the bounds of capitalism have become pretty much boundless.

It seems scientists should start uniting a resistance against these companies...

Thoughts everyone?

A quick google search for "cancer cured in 1928" linked me to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Gerson.

This guy is crazy. Advocated the daily ingestion of raw calf liver, which surprise surprise resulted in followers of this diet contracting rare food born infectious bacteria. Not to mention the coffee enemas.

I do not believe that pharmaceutical companies are sitting on cures for cancer and other diseases. Drug research is very costly and it usualy takes years after the drug has been approved for human consumption for these companies to start seeing profits. That being said, there are a multitude of diseases in the world who's treatment or cure can be profited off of.

Even if there existed a one time cure for cancer; the company that released that drug would not only make a ton of money but will forever been know as the pharmaceutical company that saved mankind from the scourge of cancer. No need to hire a PR firm for that kind of marketing.

[radiocaroline]

True true, I thought it was something that generates curiosity and the more you think, I guess even the capitalist cannot be that evil - glad that the brave lady who said that to me did however, done quite a lot of reading into it and it's quite fascinating

[Sasha]

ehm, no, curing cancer would make these companies far richer than not curing cancer ever could, that would be a very stupid business plan for ruthless capitalists, its just another conspiracy theory..

[radiocaroline]

I know it's been in a few family guy episodes as well haha, but I know that the idea is that the cure is through long term prescription drugs which obviously make tons of money if distributed to all of the worlds cancer sufferers, suppose the sheer publicity of a once and for all cure would be sufficient enough for a capitalist

[aristos]

It might not be applicable to cure for cancer but is pretty well known that the pharma industry screwed people over big time by aggressively pushing antibiotics instead of bacteriophages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy).

The reason? It's impossible to patent bacteriophages. Even today most countries have legal restrictions on phage therapy.

Interestingly enough phage therapy was widely practiced as a much more healthy alternative in the USSR and is still used in Russia and Georgia.

[Slavic]

It might not be applicable to cure for cancer but is pretty well known that the pharma industry screwed people over big time by aggressively pushing antibiotics instead of bacteriophages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy).

The reason? It's impossible to patent bacteriophages. Even today most countries have legal restrictions on phage therapy.

Interestingly enough phage therapy was widely practiced as a much more healthy alternative in the USSR and is still used in Russia and Georgia.

The production of bacteriophages would most likely only be conducted by a government agency. Obtaining a patent on such organisms is tricky because it can set a precedent for crafting patents on other organisms, not necessarily microbes.

Image a farm conglomerate obtaining a patent on a species of chicken.

Bacteriophages are very promising though, and a cause a hell of a lot less side effects than your typical antibiotic.

[aristos]

The production of bacteriophages would most likely only be conducted by a government agency. Obtaining a patent on such organisms is tricky because it can set a precedent for crafting patents on other organisms, not necessarily microbes.

Image a farm conglomerate obtaining a patent on a species of chicken.

Bacteriophages are very promising though, and a cause a hell of a lot less side effects than your typical antibiotic.

Obviously. And I hear there is now a push (still feeble, but none the less) towards reviving phage therapy. This has to do with fears that in a not so distant future antibiotics will simply stop working due to antibiotic resistance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_bug_(bacteria)).
Typically capitalist - wait until a disaster is looming before doing anything.