As a physician, I have seen the harm to families due to the exorbitant costs of medical care and medications in this area.
Having recently worked in New Zealand, which ensures a basic level of care to all its citizens, I have realized that there are ways that the United States can improve its systems:
Research and development costs do not justify the high price of drugs in the U.S. Total R&D expenditures of 10 firms that recently introduced new cancer drugs amounted to $9 billion, while those drugs generated $67 billion in revenues.Profits are not the sole motive for innovation in medicine. Scientific curiosity is a powerful incentive for medical breakthroughs. Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine, rejected patenting for his breakthrough, declaring, “Could you patent the sun?”American taxpayers subsidize the basic research behind most new medicines by providing grants to researchers through the National Institutes of Health. But the Bayh-Dole Act permits researchers to patent their government-supported work products and sell them to private drug firms. We can change that law so that tax-funded breakthroughs actually benefit the American people again.The profit-driven pharmaceutical industry ignores conditions that it deems unprofitable, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, two common and debilitating diseases. This research can instead be supported with public money, ensuring that the discoveries are kept in a patent-free public domain, so that new treatments can be sold cheaply as generics as they are brought to market. Joan MacEachen, MD
Durango
