Comments by "Antony Wooster" (@antonywooster6783) on "Pfizer, illegal exploitation" video.

  1. I have been saying for a long time now, that there is a clear conflict of interest in a private pharmaceutical firm. The firm has a clear, legal duty to its shareholders, Its duty to its customers is less clear, is moral not legal and is legally unenforceable. A cured customer is a lost sale. The best result of a product, is the "stabilization" of a chronic disease, where the patient is on the drug for the rest of his long life. (Better still if it is addictive.)This was made very clear to me by the case of Dr Barry Marshall N.P. who discovered that stomach ulcers (remember them?) were caused by Helicobacter Pylorii and could be CURED in a fortnight with antibiotics. It took him TEN YEARS to get this accepted by the medical profession as a result of the blocking tactics of the pharmaceutical industry. No doubt there are numerous other examples. They were able to do this because they own the Medical Journals through advertising and the Medical schools through sponsorship. Who can doubt that they own politicians too. As you say, we need the government to nationalize the production of generic pharmaceuticals, but I would go much further. I would say that Private pharmaceutical industry is an essentially bad idea. A bad idea in principle, What is needed is national pharmaceutical industries or better an international pharmaceutical industry funded by all governments. (The reason is simple: for the pharmaceutical firm the ideal medicine produces a customer who is sick of a chronic disease, while from the government's pov, the ideal medicine is one that produces a cured patient.) Nationalization would avoid price gouging, suppression of cures, and neglect of rare diseases among other advantages. It would prevent the suppression of medicines that work because they compete with newer, more profitable medicines which do the same or less. It would avoid a huge number of drawbacks that are built into private pharma. It would undoubtedly save billions. (Both meanings!) It would also free the medical journals to publish interesting papers without wondering if their advertisers would approve. Probably, the industry should be run, or at least supervised by a committee of practicing doctors, without more than the minimum of junior burocrats involved. Boy! Can you imagine the opposition such a proposal would meet?!
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