[Fsf-friends] Re: Very Important

[Sandip Bhattacharya]

On Mon, 2005-03-07 at 20:44 +0200, Praveen A wrote:
> missing one important point in ur mail- Removal of patents may lead to
> the end of Reasearch and Development in the world.If there are no
> patents no firm will be trying to find out a medicine for AIDS or any
> other diseases like that.In order to develop a product they need to
> pour 100 s of crores for a span of 7-10 years,who is going to repay
> their costs?? the only way to recover their costs is through patents!.

Bull. Are you trying to say government funded medical institutions like
AIIMS, etc. dont do any medical research? The government allocates
crores of rupees for the heath sector. Do you think if private sector
dries up, the government will not do anything about it? A large amount
of money in technical and medical research in US is done using
government funds. WHO/United Nations and many non-profit organizations
fund medical projects. What about them?

You think there is more private sector medical research because the
private sector has to make it seem like that.

Who do you think comes up with medicines for diseases in the third world
today? It is not these private medical firms! These firms only make
medicines for people who can pay (and of late, people who can pay *a
lot*)

Diseases like AIDS, cancer affect the rich people too and therefore
there are medicine for them. When demand becomes more than supply,
prices will rise till the prices of medicines perfectly balance the
demand and supply. Simple laws of economics - only we are talking about
life and death here. Maybe it is time we take the decision that laws of
economics dont apply in the medicine sector in its purest form ... or
even a decision where branding of medicines is banned i.e. only service
(i.e. only generics) and not product based business is done here.


- Sandip

--
Sandip Bhattacharya    *    Puroga Technologies   *     sandip@puroga.com
Work: http://www.puroga.com   *    Home/Blog: http://www.sandipb.net/blog

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