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Quote by: ghost_stalker  In the world we live in today we have many medicines that treat illness (no cures, but treatments), and the major parties involved in medical research are large pharmaceutical companies, which sell these treatments to make their money. And use the money to find more treatments (which they can charge more people for, and therefore make more money)
Now heres where the catch comes in, these companies make treatments not cures, they do this because treating you is more profitable than curing you. If got cured then you wouldn't need to buy anymore medicine, then the pharmaceutical companies would get your money. They keep one step ahead making sure that once one medicine becomes ineffective they have one that is equally effective, not better.
If medicine research is left to capitalist corporation, then we will never find a cure for anything because it wouldn't be profitable. Research instead should be done by an organization that will benefit from curing people, without receiving any benefit from developing a treatment. If pharmaceutical companies worked to cure disease instead of treating it we probably would be alot more healthy than we are today. |
Well now, let's see. Do you have, or have you ever had, a disease that threatened your life? Do you know what it is to benefit from a treatment that doesn't cure you but does stem the progression of the disease? Do you know what it is like to benefit from a medicine that in many ways will reverse the effect and causes of a life threatening disease?
I can speak from experience with Cancer and what I have found is that I am damn thankful there is Lupron. I am damn thankful there is radiational therapy. I am damn thankful there is Casodex. None of these therapeutic benefits are a cure but they, in a combined manner, saved my life and I am damned thankful to the people who designed them. I don't care if they are working on a cure or not because what they did develop saved my life at the time.
As for a cure for cancer, can you imagine the profits that will be earned by the company that develops a vacine for Breast or Prostate cancer? Can you imagine the money the person will earn that patents the proceedure to eliminate and substitute the genes that are marked for cancer? It will dwarf the profits of any one cancer "maintenence" drug like Casodex. Besides, when a drug is first developed, it tends to be expensive . Then, as it becomes more widely used, it is manufactured as a generic, and then finally it can be offered over the counter. This happened with Zantac. Therefore, I disagree there is no financial gain in developing a cure for diseases that maine and kill. You premise is a stretch to accept.
Take the profit motive out of the mix, and I ask, where would the incentive be to develop the cure? In government research? Haaa Not likely. All you would probably have is a government boondoggle to keep researchers in a job without having to produce meaningful results.
No, when there is profit incentive in searching for the cures for debilitating and deadly diseases, there is motive to be successful. Financial rewards have proven to be powerful incentives in health care.