ihbia: Medical Companies

I was thinking about what someone told me one day. That was: that medical companies have developed a cure for cancer that works so well the medicine isn't needed much and is really cheap to make. Because of this low cost in production and returns the companies won't even bother to make it: as there wouldn't be enough of a profit!

Now I do not know anything about the veracity of the above story, however, it got me thinking about the principle behind medical companies.

The main goal of a medical company is not to cure illnesses or make people better, it is to make a profit. That's a scary thought when you sit down and let it sink in. Sure some of the more serious things medical companies have developed drugs to cure but there are some other things, some discomfort issues, that maybe they have discovered a cure for but it is more profitable for them to not release it onto the market.

For example I was thinking about my own asthma. Every month I spend (and mine are the cheapest of the inhalers pretty much) around 60 Euro on my different inhalers in order to combat the discomfort my asthma brings me. Now I know that in 99% of circumstances that my form of asthma isn't all that life threatening, it is more a trouble breathing discomfort thing. Imagine that Ivax (who make my inhalers) developed a cure for my strand of asthma and it could be sold on the market at 100 Euro and you needed to take two doses of whatever it was to be completely cured. So instead of 60 times 12 (720 per year), the medical company gets 200 once and no more. That doesn't make any business sense for them! It is better for them to have me on my inhalers my entire life with them only doing a fraction of what may actually be possible so they do that to line their own pockets.

Going back to the cancer scenario. What if it is true? Then I believe any medical company that has that knowledge is committing a crime against humanity in not releasing the information to the public and making the drug available.

It is madness that a company in the business of developing ways to save lives is doing something counter to that. They should be forced to take a Hippocratic oath and face time in prison if the government appointed agency that watches over their dealings finds them to have broken it.

People can be so selfish...