conquering the world one oxymoron at a time
March 20, 2006 at 2:11 am
· Filed under current events
It is a wonder that a pharmaceutical industry still even exists today. Call me cynical, but in such a sue-happy world as modern day America, I would almost expect every drug to be pulled off the shelves as companies try to stay afloat admist all of the lawsuits filed against them by the 1 in a million case of severe bleeding caused by their otherwise life-saving drug.
It is lose-lose for the companies, it seems. All drugs come with side effects, some more severe than others, obviously. However, is avoiding the 1 in a million freak fatality worth keeping the drug off the shelves and not saving the lives of the other 999,999? If the drug stays on the shelf, the 1 in a million sues the pharmaceutical company for damages incurred while taking the drug. If the drug gets pulled, those whose lives were significantly improved by the drug sues the company for the pain and suffering inflicted on them because of the now lack of a drug that used to work wonders.
So how can pharmaceutical possibly win?
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ali wrote @ March 20th, 2006 at 2:33 am
you feel sorry for pharmaceutical companies… i feel sorry for the millions of people dying of aids because they cant afford the price of their drugs
i did read your post, but i have a hunch that my response might be a little unrelated… sorry :)
Anonymous wrote @ March 20th, 2006 at 10:00 pm
how about those pharmaceutical companies who intentionally withhold cheaper, more effective drugs because their more expensive, less effective drugs are more profitable? fuck the drug companies. they are just as fucked up as the tobacco industry.
Jay wrote @ March 21st, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Pharma’s make good money or else they wouldn’t be in business. One new drug can be worth 1 billion in sales revenue for a couple of years. These new drugs are expensive because for every one drug that makes it to the market, another 8-9 would’ve failed during trials. You have a 10% chance of making money.
The people who sue due to a failure of a drug usually don’t get all the money they win from a lawsuit. It’s surprisingly hard to prove that a certain drug was the cause of the person’s death, because each person is different. I wouldn’t be too concerned about Pharma’s making money, if they didn’t no one would be in the business.
Shan wrote @ March 22nd, 2006 at 12:13 am
big pharma makes money. small pharma hardly ever make money because there is so much involved in FDA approval that it is incredibly hard to get any drug not backed by big pharma through the pipeline financially b/c it’s such a prolonged process to get a drug approved. (and for this same reason, big pharma doesn’t pursue drugs unless there is significant demand so as to recover the costs during the developmental/approval stage). and AFTER all of this, one small side effects gets everybody suing in class action lawsuits. sure, individuals don’t get very much money in these cases (they usually get screwed by the torts lawyers taking a huge cut off of the payout), but pharmaceuticals still have to pay the money to the hundreds of thousands to millions of people suing for small defects OR they pay the huge sums that result from lawsuits by those with serious side effects like incapacitating handicaps or even death.
i’m not concerned about big pharma; i just think people shouldn’t be so sue-happy. preventing 1 rare person from having severe side effects is not worth pulling the entire drug off the market and making 999,999 others suffer without the drug that made their lives so much easier.
Anonymous wrote @ March 22nd, 2006 at 12:30 am
small pharm has big drug, no money. big pharm buys out small pharm. workers for small pharm get rich, retire early. end of story… fuck them all
Pandax wrote @ March 27th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
The American public has been convinced by the media that everything has to be safe. We have a society where people are unwilling to take responsibility for themselves. That’s why there’s a fence around every puddle of water and a rail against every ledge. People think they should be able to sue because their kid got hurt trespassing in some else’s yard when there was a lock on the fence.
I’m not going to argue about the money, it’s a futile debate. Like every other industry, it’s the people at the top who make the money. The rest of us are here because we need a job or truly enjoy what we do. The fact of the matter is that everything is a tradeoff - nothing comes free. If you drive a car, you polute the air. If you listen to an iPod everyday, you will loose your hearing. If you take a drug to make you’re heart better, you risk making your liver sick. If people took better care of themselves, in many case, they wouldn’t need half the drugs they take. Stop eating the McDonalds, potato chips, and Oreos and turn off the tv once in awhile.
ringtones free
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