Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 1 hour ago, Rippounet said: I hate to have to break it to you, but climate change means "pragmatic liberal" is now an oxymoron. Not really when you consider the far left has a zero percent chance of solving climate change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 7 hours ago, karaddin said: Big pharma does a hell of a lot of good, the inability to see that is a major flaw of many on the left. And it's not just vaccines, even the much maligned painkillers are vitally important to many. How a Big Pharma Company Stalled a Potentially Lifesaving Vaccine in Pursuit of Bigger Profits https://www.propublica.org/article/how-big-pharma-company-stalled-tuberculosis-vaccine-to-pursue-bigger-profits Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 BTW -- this constant drumbeat of Quote the left has gone into this strange group think territory where anything that isn't perfect for them is viewed as bad. Is nobody I know or recognize, and we tend to be pretty progressive. And for a lot of us, at least, whatever you are referring to isn't even viewed about us but about others who are suffering. It's just another bs slagging of those who aren't so well off or those who care about those who aren't as some sort of self-righteous, patting on the back superiority to the canard of how stupid everyone else but me/us is/are. Spockydog, Sophelia and Larry of the Lawn 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mudguard Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 2 hours ago, Rippounet said: You're confusing medical research with Big pharma. To thank Big pharma for vaccines is like thanking the GAFAM for the internet: completely deluded. Big Pharma does a ton of medical research. Not sure what you are getting at here. Big Pharma also manufactures the vast majority of vaccines for the world, and is responsible for bringing most new vaccines that have been developed over the past decades to market. Many of these new vaccines were developed in-house at big pharma. Some recent high profile Covid vaccines where either developed by a start-up or developed in a partnership with Big Pharma. Pfizer has shipped out billions of Covid vaccines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kissdbyfire Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 Tip of a very lucrative iceberg: 10 Biggest Pharmaceutical Settlements https://angeloslaw.com/legal-blog/2022/01/10-biggest-pharmaceutical-settlements/#:~:text=1.,a total of %243 billion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conflicting Thought Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 7 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said: a pragmatic liberal. what this even mean? seems to me you just dont like what leftist want. im curious what is the difference, to you, betweeten being a leftie and being a liberal (pragmatic or not) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conflicting Thought Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 45 minutes ago, Mudguard said: Big Pharma does a ton of medical research sure, if the can make a profit out of it, and i would say they finance scientist and then they trademark that knoledge to make a profit, and fuck everyone who cant afford it. the shut down investigation that are not going to make them profit, like a cant belive we have to say this but big pharma are not your friends lol they dont have our best interest in mind, the have money in their mind, nothing else Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 7 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said: what this even mean? seems to me you just dont like what leftist want. im curious what is the difference, to you, betweeten being a leftie and being a liberal (pragmatic or not) Results, not rhetoric. Larry of the Lawn 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted February 21 Share Posted February 21 4 hours ago, Rippounet said: You're confusing medical research with Big pharma. To thank Big pharma for vaccines is like thanking the GAFAM for the internet: completely deluded. There are a lot of scientists doing research employed by big pharma and their work is consistently ignored and dismissed. Yeah the executives that run the companies are evil fuckers and you're misunderstanding me if you think I'm defending them, the world would be improved if we could flick a switch and change all the pharma companies into not for profits with exactly the same output. But we can't, and I really want people to remember just how important most of the drugs are so they don't decide to torch the whole thing when tearing capitalism down. I'd rather be dead than have to confront life without the medications that are so transformative to my quality of life. Most people that go into research do it with good intentions and very few of them actually climb the corporate ladder to become the leeches that are the actual problem. Don't dismiss the good that is done in spite of the leeches. HexMachina 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mudguard Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 Don't want to derail the thread, so this is the last I'll say on this topic, but I agree that Big Pharma definitely has it's problems, and is driven like other for profit companies by making as much money as they can. Based on the biggest settlements list posted by kissdbyefire, significant problems include pushing for off-label uses, payment of kickbacks to doctors, and hiding risks and adverse events from research and clinical trials. All these are driven by greed. Last two are outright illegal, and the first two also implicate shady doctors, without which the first two cannot happen. But I also agree with karaddin that Big Pharma is not an evil boogeyman, and does a lot of good. It's possible to do good and make a profit at the same time. Also agree that nationalization of the industry or converting them to nonprofits would not lead to better results. There could definitely be more regulation, such as price regulation and off-label use regulation, but we would need a functional Congress to do anything in the US, and large lobbyist groups for both Big Pharma and other health care industries would be against it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conflicting Thought Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 1 hour ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said: Results, not rhetoric. Wich results? Rhethoric is the tool of the liberal the way i see it. like what makes you think we are doing ok as a species? What has liberalism got you but complacensy, and hugs and prayers. Liberalism is better than conservatism but it still not good. They cap for capitalism, cant make serious changes if you think capitalism is the answer. What is a liberal, obama and the clintons? Rippounet 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Conflicting Thought Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 Big farma doing a lot of good is a byproduct, is a happy accident. They are in the medical business, so its going to help no matter what, except it could be so so much better, to so many people. You wouldnt have to fight to aford life saving medicine, wouldnt have to beg and go into debt to get the help you need. Wouldnt be at the whims of them when we get hit by a pandemic. And the west wouldnt be prioritized to get them. Rippounet 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 30 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said: Wich results? Rhethoric is the tool of the liberal the way i see it. like what makes you think we are doing ok as a species? What has liberalism got you but complacensy, and hugs and prayers. Liberalism is better than conservatism but it still not good. They cap for capitalism, cant make serious changes if you think capitalism is the answer. What is a liberal, obama and the clintons? What has the far left done if you're keeping it to US officials? Go line by line and ask yourself what their impact has been. Fixed the debt? No. Fixed social services? No. Fixed education? no. Fixed the environment? No. We can play this game all day. You need to be in a position to nudge people, not be strident and ask for everything all at once. The latter will result in nothing more often than not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 1 hour ago, Mudguard said: does a lot of good. I Deliberately addicting millions to oxy -- there's a reason the Sacklers got sacked. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9339402/ Spit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mudguard Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 3 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said: What has the far left done if you're keeping it to US officials? Go line by line and ask yourself what their impact has been. Fixed the debt? No. Fixed social services? No. Fixed education? no. Fixed the environment? No. We can play this game all day. You need to be in a position to nudge people, not be strident and ask for everything all at once. The latter will result in nothing more often than not. Well, Jill Stein and the Green Party may have helped Trump get elected over Clinton, so there is that. And I think she is running again this election cycle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Anti-Targ Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 (edited) There is no way Big Pharma is the best model for developing new therapies and devices. I would prefer to fund universities and other independent research organisations directly from public finances with a mandate to develop new therapies, including natural and non-pharmaceutical therapies. Big pharma, such as it is, can competitively bid for manufacturing products with an exclusive licence for a period, for treatments that are developed and proven by the research organisations. I have to say that here at least the slightly radical left (i.e. the left that is just mainstream enough to get MPs into parliament) has done a lot to drag the whole political spectrum towards at least admitting something needs to be done about climate change. Was not long ago that the political right here was made up of straight up deniers and people who constantly said its no where near as bad as the greenies claim. These days there is no one in the political mainstream who will say there isn't urgency, at least not in public, while the right still wants to allow companies to find new fossil fuel sources. Their argument seems to be something like, people and businesses are still going to use the stuff for some time yet, so we might as well take the profits rather than some foreign country. There has been other semi-radical left action on the environment that has changed the mainstream. While it is all very late in coming, I'm not sure incrementalism would have moved the mainstream sooner. As far as economic and social policy goes the problem of the left is that when they are in government they haven't been using the right fiscal framework. They still mostly believe in the deficit myth and so will always have a timer on what they want to do because eventually people will start voting for lower taxes. Edited February 22 by The Anti-Targ Rippounet 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 4 hours ago, Conflicting Thought said: Big farma doing a lot of good is a byproduct, is a happy accident. They are in the medical business, so its going to help no It's a byproduct to the executives and owners - absolutely. It's not to most of the researchers, nor to the people whose lives are drastically improved by access to the medications. Again, I'm 100% in favor of a non capitalism model for this. But a lot of the railing against big pharma isn't just against the business model, it's the entire idea of the medications they produce and would damn the researchers along with their bosses. That's what I'm pushing back on, not defending the Sacklers or Shkreli. And this trend in aus has already restricted my access to some of the medication I need, it's not just some hypothetical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luzifer's right hand Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 How do you think active ingredients for clinical trials are produced? That requires at least pilot plant production level scale. Drugs often fail if you can't upscale production to that level in a cost effective way even if they might work otherwise. Which you won't know because you never get the amounts needed for proper tests in that case. A lot of drugs fail in the clinical trial phase after pilot plants produced active ingredients for millions or even tens of millions of $. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hmmm Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 32 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said: How do you think active ingredients for clinical trials are produced? That requires at least pilot plant production level scale. Drugs often fail if you can't upscale production to that level in a cost effective way even if they might work otherwise. Which you won't know because you never get the amounts needed for proper tests in that case. A lot of drugs fail in the clinical trial phase after pilot plants produced active ingredients for millions or even tens of millions of $. Yup. The entire big pharma debate is rife with conspiracy theories. There are few other industries that have done more to improve global living standards than the pharmaceutical sectors of capitalist countries like the USA, Germany, Switzerland, and so on. That there are some bad apples or skewed incentives here and there does not change that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Anti-Targ Posted February 22 Share Posted February 22 People assume the right way is the way that won out over all the other possible ways. Just because the current pharma industry model has delivered a great deal of benefit to humanity doesn't mean a different model wouldn't have delivered at least the same benefit without so much of the misery and suffering that the same industry has caused, and some times knowingly so. I think there is a better way, just like I think there is a better way than this neoliberal capitalist paradigm the world has been suffering under. Prince of the North, Larry of the Lawn and Rippounet 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts