Jan 27 2010
The Good of “Big Pharma”
Black-and-white thinking is juvenile, immature, uninformed, unsophisticated, naive. Sure, it would be nice and simple if everything in our world could be fitted with a black or white hat, like in a old-fashioned Hollywood Western: black for all bad, white for all good. But the world is more complicated than that. The adult who insists it isn’t behaves like a simpleton.
In terms of large (successful/efficient) pharmaceutical companies, yes, some of what they do could be classified as bad. But do they no good?
Yesterday I came across this science article: Little Pill Means Big News in the Treatment of Multiple Sclerosis.
MS is a fairly nasty degenerative disease, and over a quarter of a million people in the US suffer from it.
Multiple sclerosis is a disabling neurological condition which usually starts in young adulthood. It results from the body’s own immune system damaging the central nervous system. This interferes with the transmission of messages between the brain and other parts of the body and leads to problems with vision, muscle control, hearing and memory.
The news of a promising treatment for MS is a good thing. Medical researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, have discovered that the drug Cladribine holds such promise (generic form of LEUSTATIN, originally developed by Janssen-Ortho Inc.).
Compared to patients who were taking a placebo, those taking Cladribine tablets were over 55 per cent less likely to suffer relapse, and 30 per cent less likely to suffer worsening in their disability due to MS.
That’s a robust result. Will it hold up in subsequent trials? For the sake of those with MS — NOT the sake of Big Pharma’s bottom line — I hope it does.
I have no blind allegiance to pharmaceutical corporations. I recognize there are better drugs, there are worse drugs; there are better industry practices, there are worse. I also recognize that in our current healthcare system, it is important for drug companies to prosper. No, not to generate extravagant profits. But to make the money it takes to continue to research and develop drugs. Drugs that hold great promise for whomever may need them. If Big Pharma doesn’t develop and test medicines, who will?
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I think one reason why the thinking regarding Big Pharma is so rigidly Manichean is that what they do and how they behave has an impact on the very existence of others. It’s easy to lightly banter on the fine points of capitalism vs. socialism, but when lives are at stake and people are blindly profiting off of behaviors that society considers unethical, you have a situation where someone will be vilified. Undoubtedly, the pharmaceutical industry can do better.