[olsen]

(this blogger has ALS)

http://barbarabrenner.net/

Drug Development and Access: Time to Act Like Lives Depend on It




An Op-Ed in the Sunday New York Times in the past few weeks pointed out that important cancer drugs are being rationed by companies that have simply interrupted production...

.. .Dr Emanuel is an oncologist and a health policy wonk who was most recently an adviser in the Obama White House. In his article the good doctor details the current shortage of commonly-used cancer drugs... He believes that the best way to get the missing drugs back on the market is to make generics of the drugs that are in short supply more profitable...



The article got me thinking once more about whether capitalism and health care are concepts that make any sense together, and about how cancer and ALS are different, yet the same.

In his op-ed, Dr. Emanuel says, “You don’t have to be a cynical capitalist to see that the long-term solution is to make the production of generic cancer drugs more profitable.”

I see the situation differently: you don’t have to be a raging socialist to see that the solution to the drug access and cost problem is to nationalize the pharmaceutical industry. We can pass laws until the cows come home to try to get pharmaceutical companies to behave in ways that will not harm patients while keeping their profits intact. But the goal of companies that make drugs is to make money, and that goal will always trump the needs of patients when the two conflict. Sadly, you can bet your life on it.

As long as we insist that health care must provide a profit for the drug companies and that this profit must not be subject to regulation our health will be short-changed...

(as I have written before, I too think nationalizing the pharmaceutical industry is a great idea and would help solve the money crisis in health care arena. madelyn)