Is Big Pharma Really That Bad?

[Tim R]

What do you think about the pharma industry? Is it really always as bad as people say it is? Especially stage green tends to have a (strong) a aversion against the pharma industry, but how justified is this really? Sure, the problem is that they make money with sick people. But if it wasn't for Big Pharma, those people wouldn't be sick but either very sick or dead. 

[Tanz]

Well they were asked to release the patent on the vaccine but rejected. They also could have released the merck drug used to treat covid but choose not to because they wanted Trump out of office. Their hate for him was greater than saving lives.

Both parties sabotaging eachother needs to end. When Obama was in power the GOP did the same. 

So going back to your question is big pharma bad? Mostly yes and partly no...

 I don't think most of the people are malicious and have good intentions. They are just unconsciously selfish 

 

[Flowerfaeiry]

There’s lots of room for improvement. Too many individuals heavily reliant on these companies. Not enough holistic thinking in health care.

[Consept]

It comes down to the market not being regulated enough, that's the real issue. A company in any field that there are holes in regulation where they can take advantage, most likely will take advantage, especially as they're driven by stock performance, if they aren't making profits and no one puts money in them the company will cease to exist. 

This was the same in finance, real estate, every industry you can think of has scaused chaos because a hole was found and exploited and greed took over because it was essentially sanctioned fraud and it then had a devastating effect on normal people and the economy. 

So with pharma, things like not being able to advertise prescription medicine the way the do, we dont get that in the UK but when I went to the US I couldn't believe how many adverts I saw. Not being able to influence doctors to sell a particular medicine, there's loads of things like that, that aren't shut down because of lobbying and what the government allows. 

These things are systemic and it's kind of short sighted to just blame the pharma companies. Green tends to demonise big pharma but if they looked at structurally they may have a different perspective. Ultimately Western health has been a net positive and saved and extended a lot of peoples lives, the entanglement with it being a business with shareholders to pay and a regulatory and political system that allows manipulation is of course dangerous and needs to be fixed. 

[Rilles]

Big Pharma in itself is not bad, its just very corrupt, its the same with government, we need government but we need good government, dont throw the baby out with the bath water. There would be alooot of suffering that you would have to through if Big Pharma didnt exist, and alot more useless deaths.

[Tanz]

56 minutes ago, Rilles said:

Big Pharma in itself is not bad, its just very corrupt, its the same with government, we need government but we need good government, dont throw the baby out with the bath water. There would be alooot of suffering that you would have to through if Big Pharma didnt exist, and alot more useless deaths.

Im not so sure about that... There is a big difference between pharmaceuticals and medical science.  Medical science has the do with the doctors doing surgery, body scans and pharma is drugs... Most of the drugs used for crisis care are drugs invented decades ago.  

Medical doctors do not run the medical profession, its pharma, hospitals, insurance and shareholders of these entities.  The MD's are the workers most of the time and they are the real heroes.  

A majority of the drugs that changed the world were invented prior to the 80s?
THe 80s and 90s was a corrupt time where pharma would buy porsche's for the doctors and pay for their trips to hawaii. Thats when the real corruption started. 7-10 drugs get pulled off the shelf after years being approved by FDA every year.  There is probably a handful of drugs released out of the ones that are duds.

I believed if we didn't have a quick solution to disease, that we would look inside more and develop healthier ways to be healthy and happy. This would create business opportunity for individuals like personal trainers, nutritionist, life coaches etc.  People and services cant be commodified but iphones and pills can, which is why the narrative is always external 

[Leo Gura]

Be careful with generalizations such as "Big Pharma". There are many phrama companies who have their own agendas.

Some companies can be quite toxic, greedy, and corrupt -- like Purdue Pharma.

But also, these giant companies make hundreds of different products, some of which are amazing, others which are toxic. It rarely even makes sense to say that one company is good or bad. Business and medicine is far too complex for such black and white styles of thinking.

[BadHippie]

Any system that´s build on dogma, can be called "bad" from a subjective perspective.

The problem I see is it runs on money, and any system that runs on money will eventually be "corrupted" by it. 
The whole system needs sick people, needs to develop new ways to make money (to continuously grow). This also means that it won´t be necessarily focused on "well-being".

There are many ways in which the whole medical-complex works in counter-productive (iatrogenic) ways because of this...

For example there is the whole social-economic and bureaucratic part, in which the whole medical complex creates stress, sickness, crippling needs and so on. It even is a radical monopoly which kills the occupational freedom of doctors. In the same way that a city that´s build around motorized traffic kinda devalues the functioning of human legs. If clinics start to claim everyone, whose medical condition is critical, they are enforcing a new way of dying on society. 

 

 

Edited October 25, 2021 by BadHippie