Corporations have power. And they are guided by human beings — animals notorious for their propensity to be selfish (for good and bad). Add power to ordinary selfishness, and you’ve got a very big bully on your block.
No, corporations are not evil by nature. Yes, they may be dangerous by nature, due to their size. Clashes occur when the self-interest of a powerful few threatens the interests of many. The pharmaceutical industry may provide a good case-in-point. The selfish incentive provided by bottom-line profits has led to developments that do little good for consumers of a number of pharmaceutical products, yet generate a lot of cash. For the corporation.
This topic came to my attention recently in the form of a news release of the science sort – Pharmaceuticals: A market for producing ‘lemons’ and serious harm
Author of the study, Donald Light, came to this conclusion -
Three reasons why the pharmaceutical market produces “lemons” are: Having companies in charge of testing new drugs, providing firewalls of legal protection behind which information about harms or effectiveness can be hidden, and the relatively low bar set for drug efficacy in order for a new drug to be approved.
While the above makes a lot of sense to me — and perhaps even strikes a chord of my prejudices — I wondered about the source of the information upon which the conclusion was based. I learned -
Light’s paper, “Pharmaceuticals: A Two-Tier Market for Producing ‘Lemons’ and Serious Harm,” is an institutional analysis of the pharmaceutical industry and how it works based on a range of independent sources and studies, including the Canadian Patented Medicine Prices Review Board, the Food and Drug Administration, and Prescrire International.
Hmm. What’s an “institutional analysis”? I think I’d need access to the entire paper, and perhaps be a near-expert in the field, to evaluate the legitimacy of the finding. My hunch tells me it’s likely legitimate. But I await further information and education before I feel confident in the conclusions.
In any regard, I am hearted by the fact that there are individual Davies out there attempting to keep the corporate Goliaths in check.
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Tags: critical thinking, culture, medicine
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