Problem with the Big Pharma nonsense it that it ignores the things that Large Pharmatics companies can be rightly criticized for, and instead goes after paranoid nonsense.
The bit about Big Pharma surpressing a cure for cancer is really funny. A real cure for cancer would make the company holding the patent profits that the greediest company could not dream of.
This is exactly how I feel too. "Big pharma" (and even little pharma) companies have much negative that can be said about them. But also some positive. They are neither the devil nor god- they are corporate entities with the inevitable mix of honest business, some pride as to their products, some legal money grubbing, and some illegal or even immoral behavior and policies. Some companies are better than others (sometimes much better than others). Some are immoral bottom feeders trying to exploit desperately ill people for every cent they can get by selling products at huge profit margins that were purchased from others without incurring any development costs. Other companies, in contrast, take large financial risks investing in research and development, losing money on many failed drugs and therefore requiring some form of higher income from the drugs that do succeed (and yes, they want to make a profit too). Each is composed of people, many of whom have high goals and motivations and truly wish to help sick people, others who just want a salary, and yet others who are sneaky and untrustworthy and would do anything to advance their own careers. Just like almost any other organization.
Why must they be all good? Or all bad? And why must there be a conspiracy? Is it impossible for people to simply recognize the reality without gross exaggeration and fantasy?
As I mentioned in other threads, my own continued existence has been dependent on the availability of some very expensive drugs that were developed by "big pharm" in the past 15 years- I am pleased that they did develop these drugs (and that I have insurance that allows me to pay for them). These were truly new and effective drugs, not repackagings of old established ones. I recognize that the actual raw cost of making these drugs is a tiny fraction of what I pay for them. Certainly the high retail cost of these drugs greatly complicates/restricts their general availability and imposes a massive financial burden on those with poorer insurance and lower incomes than myself. Prices are cheaper outside of the USA. So at one level we in the USA are being gouged! Yes, but these same companies invested in a lot of failed drugs over the same period of time, so my "successful" drugs have been, in part, priced to help pay for the failed ones. How does it really balance out, and are the companies overall nonetheless making huge unfair profits under the circumstances? There are many ways to do the bookkeeping and as I see it no simple way to determine "the truth." There is no one truth here- it all depends on many complicated issues, including possible future legal exposure costs, the positioning of the companies for possible future research endeavors, etc.
Just to make it clear- I do think that big pharm, like big oil, often plays fast and loose so as to make bigger profits. I don't love them or blindly trust them- but I am happy at least for what some of them do some of the time.
The drug pricing, clinical trial costs, tax breaks, financial structuring, and business models of these companies has led to some important successes and to some outright failures and/or horrors. Just one example- everyone agrees that the development of antibiotic resistance by microbial pathogens is approaching a worldwide health crisis. Yet the economics of developing new drugs to counteract this crisis leaves companies very little incentive to do so. It may take many millions to develop new antibiotics to overcome this resistance problem, and many prospective drug candidates will ultimately prove unsuccessful. And even once a
successful drug is developed, people are likely to take it for only a week or two to treat an infection, so how much would a company have to charge per pill to make back its investment? Even more so, a new antibiotic that overcomes resistance to existing drugs would be reserved for only the most rare, resistant cases- one would never use it routinely (which would raise the risk of microbes development resistance to the new drug). The company would have to charge even more per pill when it was used, right?
I don't know precisely how to fix it, but some new approaches need to be implemented for both the sake of the patients and to reflect the need to finance the research and incentivize making the drugs available in practice.
I too have heard about the secret cancer cure. Having cancer myself, I find this claim both amusing and disturbing. Like you, I usually just ask the person making the claim: how much would people be willing to pay for a completely effective and easy cure, versus the treatments currently available? The person advocating the conspiracy has never been able to come up with a good answer.
