by Spearthrower wrote:trevp wrote:
I also agree that the medical authorities and the government are not setting out to profit from sick people and are taking what they consider to be the best course of action, but the pharmaceutical industry certainly does profit from sick people! Perhaps I'm just being too cynical.
As much as I'd love to be an idealist, and wish that such companies could operate on a benevolent basis, at the end of the day they need to pay for their R&D and achieve profits for their shareholders. The only way you'd get such a non-profit type of research is if the government controlled the research of pharmaceuticals, which would directly equate to all the population paying for medical developments regardless of whether they need the treatment or not. Would you recognise that as being true?
Absolutely. Realistically the way things are at the moment is likely to continue. R&D costs for drug development tend to be very high and these costs have to be recovered, but I do believe that this leads to some distortion regarding the reported efficacy of the drugs that are developed.
