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2004-07-13 International-UN-NGOs

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Posted by tipper 2004-07-13 03:06|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Interesting read about efforts to ignore Patents on drugs. Now I know some patents on just plain stupid and the U.S. Patent office seriously needs to grow a brain (even if it is shared among them), but this is going way too far. Drug companies spend millions on R & D and now the AIDS activists want to be able to steal it....

This new activism spasm is already rippling the political economics of AIDS -- and the prospects for companies that make cures. Sunday's Bangkok Post included this headline: "Government plans to copy AIDS drugs." The piece was clear: Bangkok is planning to exercise "compulsory licensing to produce copies of drugs now under patent protection to help HIV/AIDS patients." This proposal, according to Tongchai Tavichachart, head of the Government Pharmaceutical Organization, could cut the cost of such drugs by 80 percent. Well, of course it could. "Compulsory licensing" is a synonym for "confiscation," and confiscating property always cuts down the cost of acquisition.

But there is a catch -- a big one. Confiscation is usually a one-shot deal, because those who get confiscated tend to wise up after that; if the lunch must be free, the baker and the butcher stop offering it.

Posted by CrazyFool 2004-07-13 12:05:40 PM|| 2004-07-13 12:05:40 PM|| Front Page Top

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