Ebola

[Richard Barrett]

So the "market economy" doesn't really serve the health of people very well at all.

As we see for example in the panicked reaction of the US authorities to the Ebola situation. They are of course aware that Americans don't have universal access to health care and "especially to the kind of front-line health care that an epidemic calls for: access to a physician at the first sign of illness, access to affordable medication to treat disease, and even in many cases access to an emergency room. Worse yet are US labor policies, which are as if designed by some evil villain to hasten the spread of contagious disease. Consider this: Most, if not virtually all waiters, busboys, chefs and cleaning staff at restaurants in the US do not get paid sick days..." (from an article by Dave Lindorff) - another example of the market economy in action. Although actually it's not really so much a market economy as one in which the biggest corporations, being "too big to fail", don't need to worry too much about the market because they'll get bailed out by tame governments when necessary.

[teamsaint]

As we see for example in the panicked reaction of the US authorities to the Ebola situation. They are of course aware that Americans don't have universal access to health care and "especially to the kind of front-line health care that an epidemic calls for: access to a physician at the first sign of illness, access to affordable medication to treat disease, and even in many cases access to an emergency room. Worse yet are US labor policies, which are as if designed by some evil villain to hasten the spread of contagious disease. Consider this: Most, if not virtually all waiters, busboys, chefs and cleaning staff at restaurants in the US do not get paid sick days..." (from an article by Dave Lindorff) - another example of the market economy in action. Although actually it's not really so much a market economy as one in which the biggest corporations, being "too big to fail", don't need to worry too much about the market because they'll get bailed out by tame governments when necessary.

Moral hazard is a very handy concept, when you have the power to over ride it when it suits, and to see it applied to those who don't have that power.

Gongers is quite right of course about the market being fallible.

Drug companies should be made to invest a certain percentage of profit in new antibiotics, as a condition ofholding their various other licences, trading agreements, etc.

[Serial_Apologist]

Sorry but you are wrong. There is significant concern about the fact that there are some "superbugs" that are getting very close to being resistant to ALL our current antibiotics. Unlike MrGG who seems to think that only poor countries are affected, these bacteria are apolitical and will be worldwide. But because the requirement isn't there (at the moment), then the research hasn't had much head of steam.

Ebola isn't a bacterium.

[ahinton]

Exactly
My only point (whether some folks think it's "daft" or not) was that treating everything as a business isn't always a good idea.

Nearly but not quite; running pharmaceutical companies as businesses is necessary and unavoidable otherwise the work that they do and the investment in it would likely not take place, but there comes a pont at which the risk of a disease currently confined manily to poor countries spreding to richer ones shold provide the incentive to those richer ones' pharmaceutical companies to pull their fingers out and develop a reliable vaccine.

Some help seems now to be getting given by richer countries to those poor afflicted ones but it's too little so far and might in retrpspect be discovered to have been too late (although no one can be certain of that yet). The fact remains that this disease is by no means a new one, having first been identified in the part of Sudan that's now South Sudan almost 40 years ago, yet precious little effort to address it has been made until recently; that surely speaks volumes for itself in this context, given that during that time it has affected people only in central and central west African countries of which none are rich by Western standards and some are among the poorest in the world. It is well known that the kinds of hygeine and disinfectant practices that are largelyh taken for granted in most richer nations can be one of the factors capable of reducing the risk of spread of the disease, but what price that in places where there is little or no clean running water and few of the possibly helpful chemicals such as lipid solvents, detergents, bleaches or other suitable disinfectants - to say nothing of very poor healthcare infrastructure - all of which cost money?

[ahinton]

Please will you BOTH do some research before traipsing out the old chestnuts. Drug companies charge a lot less in poor countries for the same drug that you and I might use.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21821573

That's as maybe but it isn't the point here, not least because at present there is no drug internationally recognised as providing a cure for this diease in any case. The point at issue is that, in the almost four decades since this virus has been identified, rich nations with the pharmaceutical clout to develop any such treatment have fought shy of doing so because, as the disease has occurred only in very poor countries, the economic incentive for them to undertake the necessary investment in R&D and then marketing and distribution simply hasn't been there, otherwise there'd have been no obvious reason for them not to try to rise to the challenge that's only now beginning to be recognised for what it is.

[Risorgimento]

. I refuse to be trolled by cretinous fuckwits

There is zero moderation on this board.

Goodbye.

[Flosshilde]

Being a tad touchy about criticism of the role of drug companies, Rissy? From your response one would believe that they are all benevolent organisations working for the public good, & that they don't a) fight tooth & nail against generic (& cheaper)copies of their drugs being made available in the 'third world', b) don't bribe doctors to prescribe their drugs, c) don't develop 'new improved' versions of drugs as soon as the earlier version is out of copyright, d) don't invent new (& largely spurious) illnesses & conditions so that they can create & market new drugs.

You don't work in the sector, by any chance?

[jean]

And your point is what other than being a pedant?

If it's not a bacterium there's no point in treating it with antibiotics.

And more particularly for your argument here, there's no point in excusing the pharmaceutical companies on the grounds that they should exercise extreme caution in developing new antibiotics. All irrelevant to ebola.

[Risorgimento]

So many blinkered minds on this forum who only read what they want to read and interpret things to suit their own agendas rather than accept a few truths. ... Narrow minds....narrow minds. Shame really and you seem such intelligent people. Ah well.

[Risorgimento]

. I refuse to be trolled by cretinous fuckwits

There is zero moderation on this board.

Goodbye.

[ahinton]

And another predictable response introducing red herrings and drifting away from the valid point that I made. Typical reaction...mention anything putting forward a different point of view and you get labelled as 'working for them'. Or racist. Or 'rich'. Whatever floats your boat, ToothFloss.

Toys. Pram.

jean wrote
"If it's not a bacterium there's no point in treating it with antibiotics.

And more particularly for your argument here, there's no point in excusing the pharmaceutical companies on the grounds that they should exercise extreme caution in developing new antibiotics. All irrelevant to ebola."
With which part of that do you hve a problem and why?

I note that you omit to respond to my point about ebola having been identified almost four decades ago but that only recently - because there is perceived to be the first real risk of it spreading outside those economically poor African countries affected by it - does there appear to be any material evidence of efforts to develop a vaccine and to provide other much needed assistance in those areas; in so doing, you also conveniently ignore the proncipal reason why so little has been done over so many years, namely that developing a vaccine that is likely only to be of use in some of the world's economically poorest countries provides scant incentive for the pharmaceutical companies to invest in so doing.

It has nothing to do with anyone's selective reading; it's far more important than that.

[MrGongGong]

And another predictable response introducing red herrings and drifting away from the valid point that I made. Typical reaction...mention anything putting forward a different point of view and you get labelled as 'working for them'. Or racist. Or 'rich'..

=

interpret things to suit their own agendas

[Dave2002]

That's as maybe but it isn't the point here, not least because at present there is no drug internationally recognised as providing a cure for this diease in any case. The point at issue is that, in the almost four decades since this virus has been identified, rich nations with the pharmaceutical clout to develop any such treatment have fought shy of doing so because, as the disease has occurred only in very poor countries, the economic incentive for them to undertake the necessary investment in R&D and then marketing and distribution simply hasn't been there, otherwise there'd have been no obvious reason for them not to try to rise to the challenge that's only now beginning to be recognised for what it is.

Pharmaceutical companies do prioritise their efforts, and there is certainly a profit motive at work. However, it is probably not a simple case of biased research and development based on a racist view, and a view that poor communities in poor countries may not be "worth" developing for. Further, you mention a period of nearly forty years, but a lot of things have changed over that period.

There are diseases which affect people in so-called westernised/1st world countries which have a fairly low incidence, and which in the past some companies have seemngly "dragged their feet" over. One such disease is pancreatitis. One or two decades ago there were some expensive drugs available which helped with that condition, but possibly because there wasn't a big enough "market" the price of the drugs was high. I don't know quite how or why, but eventually there was a collapse in the price of the drugs which meant that patients could be treated much more cheaply.

I don't think it's possible to say with certainty that pharmaceutical companies' strategies re development of measures against ebola were unreasonably biased, perhaps due to perceived lack of a commercial market, or for any other reason.

[mercia]

The fact remains that this disease is by no means a new one, having first been identified in the part of Sudan that's now South Sudan almost 40 years ago, yet precious little effort to address it has been made until recently

yes, just been reading about this. First identified in 1976 and in the 37 years to 2013 there were 1,716 cases [not sure how many deaths]. In this latest outbreak since I think December 2013 almost 10,000 cases and 4,500+ deaths - so I guess we can see why there is a greater sense of urgency in finding a cure now.

[Risorgimento]

. I refuse to be trolled by cretinous fuckwits

There is zero moderation on this board.

Goodbye.