We'll find a treatment for coronavirus – but drug companies will decide who gets it
How will the Covid-19
pandemic end? According to conventional wisdom, the crisis may ease in a few
months, when some of the antiviral medicines on trial succeed. In a few years’
time, when a vaccine becomes available, we may eradicate the virus altogether. Yet it’s unlikely that
this is how the pandemic will actually play out. Although there is every
indication that treatments
for coronavirus may soon emerge, the mere fact of their existence is
no guarantee that people will be able to access them.
In fact, Covid-19 is more
likely to end in the same way that every pandemic ends: treatments and vaccines
will be buried in a thicket of patents – and pharmaceutical
companies will ultimately make the decisions about who lives and who
dies.
We typically think of
monopolies, where companies exert exclusive control over a commodity, as market
failures that can be corrected with antitrust laws. Medical patents are the
equivalent of legalised monopolies. In theory, patents are supposed to grant
pharma-ceutical companies a reward for investing in research and development. Crucially, they’re supposed to be temporary, lasting for 20
years. But in practice, patenting minor tweaks to a formula can extend this
term considerably, foreclosing market competition and granting pharmaceutical
companies the power to set prices.
In 1996, a treatment
for HIV/Aids was brought to market in
the US by a clutch of pharmaceutical companies. The treatment, a combination of
antiretroviral medicines, turned a virus that was a death sentence into a
chronic condition. It was priced annually at £6,500 per person – in
most parts of the world, this price was the same in practice as having no
treatment at all. It took until 2004, after millions of people had died from
the illness, for India and South Africa to afford the treatment....
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/15/coronavirus-treatment-drug-companies
Delilah Friedler: Capitalism Is
America’s Religion. The Virus Makes That Clear
American capitalism has dropped the mask — and its face is cruel and selfish
American capitalism has dropped the mask — and its face is cruel and selfish
