Drug companies have no profit incentive to create an AIDS vaccine

[Thom Little]

The federal chief of AIDS research says that he believes drug companies don't have an incentive to create a vaccine for HIV and are likely to wait to profit from it after the government develops one.

That means the government has had to spend more time focusing on the processes that drug companies ordinarily follow in developing and marketing new medicines.

"We had to spend some time and energy paying attention to those aspects of development because the private side isn't picking it up," Dr. Edmund Tramont testified in a deposition in an employment lawsuit obtained by the Associated Press.

.......

"If we look at the vaccine, HIV vaccine, we're going to have an HIV vaccine. It's not going to be made by a company," Tramont said. "They're dropping out like flies because there's no real incentive for them to do it. We have to do it."

"They will eventually - if it works, they won't have to make that big investment. And they can make it and sell it and make a profit," he said.



http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1226aids-vaccine26.html

[Divine Discontent]

1. ahhhhh! corporate america!

always there for a tax break to make extra millions, but not remotely interested in stopping the AIDS virus!


and somehow, if this disease had popped up under a president with strong morals like Jimmy Carter or someone further back, I'd believe the gov't would be pushing the drug companies to spend a large portion of their time on trying to save millions of people from this. I don't know how much time or money they do spend, however. But, I'm thinking they don't really care to cure people too much when you think about the profits from keeping them sick and living longer with therapies.

[Trillo]

2. There's only good money in treating illnesses, less in curing illness,

even less in preventing illness.

Make em sicker! /sarcasm

[Selatius]

3. Hey, this is what capitalism is all about.

What these pharmaceuticals do is no different from any other Fortune 500 company. They got to where they are today by being the most unmerciful, most cutthroat competitors in their respective markets. If that means charging several hundred dollars for 20 pills in order to satisfy the shareholders, the owners of the means of production, then it will be done. Thy will be done.

The point is to maximize personal profit and minimize personal risk. This is the reason why corporations exist: To maximize profit and shield personal liability.

If I were a greedy investor, the only reason why I would spend money on anything with respect to new drugs is because I believe it is a profitable venture that will yield results in an acceptable amount of time, not necessarily because I believe it will save human life, at least those who can pay me anyway. The lowest common denominator always is reached: Greed. I won't invest in an AIDS vaccine because that takes up too much of my time and my money, something I could be using to make myself even more money.

In the end, they go for the money. Nevermind the moral/ethical questions. They just go for the money. It's the reason why so many corporations did business with Nazi Germany. It was profitable.

[w8liftinglady]

4. Follow the paper trail..look at this crap!

Bush administration moves to suppress documents on vaccines

The Bush administration asked a federal claims court on November 26 to seal documents relating to hundreds of cases of autism allegedly caused by a mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, used in childhood vaccines.

The government’s legal action comes on the heels of an insertion into the Homeland Security bill that protects Eli Lilly, the drug company giant that developed thimerosal, from lawsuits involving the additive. The bill removes all liability from the pharmaceutical industry and health officials for the injuries and death resulting from the preservative.

The connections between the Bush administration and the pharmaceutical company are extensive. Eli Lilly’s chairman and CEO, Sidney Taurel, was recently given a seat on the president’s Advisory Council on Homeland Security and Mitch Daniels, former president of Lilly’s North American operations, is currently the White House budget director. Former president George Bush sat on Eli Lilly’s board of directors.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/dec2002/vacc-d10.shtml

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. I posted this on another similar thread, feel it bears repeating....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2006974&mesg_id=2006987

[ComerPerro]

6. And, therefore, according to the wonderful "free market", they won't

and shouldn't need to.

After all, they don't owe anyone anything, right? They just gotta look out for number one, and worry about turning a profit. Ethics and human decency aren't even factors.

Its sick how conservatives have built up a bastardized version of the free market, and how that twisted mentality has taken over.

On the one hand, drug companies don't have to waste their money developing a drug if they can't profit from it.

But at the same time, they will say that drug companies deserve government grants to develop drugs because they do us all a service and save lives.

Then, once the drug has been developed (with taxpayer help), they applaud the drug company, tell us again how great the company is for risking its own money developing a drug, and how they are entitled to gouge and profit all they want since its their investment (this is when they forget that the government and taxpayers subsidized it).

[DrBloodmoney]

7. As Chris Rock said...

... They (drug companies) won't cure AIDS. There's no money in it. They'll make it so you live with AIDS. There's no money in the cure, only in the treatment. They won't lose out on it like they did for polio.