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Big Pharma: Drug Wars, Patents, Ignored Treatments
Drowned Out
Posts: 6,056
Over the last couple of years, we've seen the stories of Dave Triplett, Rick Simpson, and many others being CURED of cancer....of Joey Perez and 'Sam' , autistic children, who made important, possibly life-saving progress thanks to medi-pot. They are using Cannabis to treat diseases and disorders not normally associated with medicinal MJ. These stories only scratch the surface...medi-pot is not just about glaucoma and increased appetite in chemo patients.....the possiblities with medical MJ are staggering:
This is why it's so concerning that last month, the US government transfered it's patent on "Cannabinoids as Anti-oxidants and neuro-protectors" EXCLUSIVELY to ONE pharma company. Right, the US government had held a medical marijuana patent since 1999. A slight contradiction, considering Cannabis is a Schedule I drug, and the DoJ persecutes patients on the basis that it has no medicinal use, no? Why would the US government take out a patent on this important research, only to put it in the hands of a single company? These mofo's have stalled important medicine for YEARS in an attempt to capitalize on it - profit over patients. Another example of a promising, cheap, widely available anti-cancer material is DCA...also unpatentable, and therfore unfunded, even under the orphan drug act.
This web of big pharma, drug laws, orphan drugs/disorders/diseases, patent laws and their affects on healthcare is a f'n mess, and it extrapolates, like most complex issues, into questions of political ideology. I mean....patent law is, afterall, a form of government regulation. It's these laws that stifle research by Big Pharma, and put their shareholders at odds with doctors and patients, not just in the US, but around the world. The time and money associated with having a drug FDA approved mean that if it isn't patentable (ie: most naturopathic treatments), it's not economically feasible, and it's not going to get any R&D funding, period.
So how do we fix this? More regulation, forcing Big Pharma to be more accountable to the health of our citizens? Do we remove regulation to make drugs easier and cheaper to approve, or remove drug patents altogether? Should medical R&D be a function of government? Do staunch libertarians really think we can convince pharmaceuticals to spend time and money looking for cures and treatments for rare diseases/disorders without incentives - or are charitites going to pay for it? Is this another flaw inherent to capitalism, or is the flaw caused by the bastardization of it?
This is why it's so concerning that last month, the US government transfered it's patent on "Cannabinoids as Anti-oxidants and neuro-protectors" EXCLUSIVELY to ONE pharma company. Right, the US government had held a medical marijuana patent since 1999. A slight contradiction, considering Cannabis is a Schedule I drug, and the DoJ persecutes patients on the basis that it has no medicinal use, no? Why would the US government take out a patent on this important research, only to put it in the hands of a single company? These mofo's have stalled important medicine for YEARS in an attempt to capitalize on it - profit over patients. Another example of a promising, cheap, widely available anti-cancer material is DCA...also unpatentable, and therfore unfunded, even under the orphan drug act.
This web of big pharma, drug laws, orphan drugs/disorders/diseases, patent laws and their affects on healthcare is a f'n mess, and it extrapolates, like most complex issues, into questions of political ideology. I mean....patent law is, afterall, a form of government regulation. It's these laws that stifle research by Big Pharma, and put their shareholders at odds with doctors and patients, not just in the US, but around the world. The time and money associated with having a drug FDA approved mean that if it isn't patentable (ie: most naturopathic treatments), it's not economically feasible, and it's not going to get any R&D funding, period.
So how do we fix this? More regulation, forcing Big Pharma to be more accountable to the health of our citizens? Do we remove regulation to make drugs easier and cheaper to approve, or remove drug patents altogether? Should medical R&D be a function of government? Do staunch libertarians really think we can convince pharmaceuticals to spend time and money looking for cures and treatments for rare diseases/disorders without incentives - or are charitites going to pay for it? Is this another flaw inherent to capitalism, or is the flaw caused by the bastardization of it?
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