If anyone's interested in a fiction that partially explores this try Corey Doctorow's new novel Walk Away [1]. It's about people who 'walk away' from regular society. They to create their own high tech society because they completely ignore IP rights, and instead aggressively share techniques using the wiki model.
An anarchist takes on Big Pharma by teaching patients to make their own meds
191–200 of 286 posts
Re: An anarchist takes on Big Pharma by teaching patients to make their own meds
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Argubly regulation is the problem we're in this mess. Do you think an epipen would cost $600 if there weren't a Government granted monopoly? All property is government intervention. And property is good. Because property is capitalism, and capitalism is God's will. /s
I sometimes feel like "free-market" types are actually incapable of understanding this point. The idea that markets and property exist as some sort of independent, empirical objects is baked so deeply into their ideology that it's almost as if they lack the symbolic vocabulary to even conceptualize the idea that property itself is created by regulations.
You seem very strongly invested in this point, which is strange considering how easily refuted it is:
Property existed long before third-party regulation.
Rather than ownership being enforced by a third party with monopoly on violence, it was enforced by the threat of escalating violence from the property owners themselves.
Eg. You take one goat from my herd and refuse to give it back, and we are now at war. Result: Nobody takes any goats.
So the property was defined by mutual understanding and mutual enforcement, not regulation.
This is still done in some societies and sub cultures (Eg. Criminals). Even animals do it, with things like territory or sharing food from a kill.
A mutual cultural belief in property strengthens this mechanism and makes it work more smoothly. This cultural belief is part of what ""free-market" types" (sic) would like to spread.
Re: An anarchist takes on Big Pharma by teaching patients to make their own meds
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cost of medicine I require to be functional enough to hold down a job has risen so much that the copay is the equivalent of the entire out-of-pocket cost from a few years ago. The medication was discovered in 1969. The application method, which is the shitty excuse for the patents protecting its $2,200/month price tag, was first approved for use by the FDA in 1979. The drug has been for sale in it's current form…
If the drug is out of patent and it is very profitable, why doesn't anyone set up a company to manufacture and sell it cheaper in the US? Same question with epipen.
The drug was repatented with the delivery mechanism, as soon as the original patent expired.
It's the usual practice to keep novel delivery system/drug combinations off the market until the original drug patent expires, thereby extending the profitability of the patent, at the cost of users suffering medicine that is consequently decades out of date.
Re: An anarchist takes on Big Pharma by teaching patients to make their own meds
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
You want pharma companies to keep doing drug discovery why not ban outright any kind of marketing or advertising for their products? R&D spend across the industry is a fraction of the marketing spend. Think of all the good research that money would fund once pharma companies were freed from spending it on advertising.
Whenever I visit the US I find it insane how much advertising for drugs is shown on TV, with the usual "ask your doctor about..." disclaimer at the end. Why aren't more American's up in arms about this?
Maybe we know how to avoid the ads better?
Re: An anarchist takes on Big Pharma by teaching patients to make their own meds
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cost of medicine I require to be functional enough to hold down a job has risen so much that the copay is the equivalent of the entire out-of-pocket cost from a few years ago. The medication was discovered in 1969. The application method, which is the shitty excuse for the patents protecting its $2,200/month price tag, was first approved for use by the FDA in 1979. The drug has been for sale in it's current form…
I am astonished that a couple of the biggest insurance companies in the US haven't banded together to form a drug manufacturing co-op. Find stuff that's off-patent and build generics for things like epi-pens. The best bit (to my thinking) is after doing this to just a few drugs, the insurance companies would have a very big negotiating stick to go after other companies pricing off-patent drugs way over cost. If I kne…
I know it's just about become a meme to share these, but there's a great Econtalk from earlier this year that explains the drug patent system. If you've never had an in-depth, you'll learn a great deal.
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/06/robin_feldman_o.htm...
Re: An anarchist takes on Big Pharma by teaching patients to make their own meds
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
I sometimes feel like "free-market" types are actually incapable of understanding this point. The idea that markets and property exist as some sort of independent, empirical objects is baked so deeply into their ideology that it's almost as if they lack the symbolic vocabulary to even conceptualize the idea that property itself is created by regulations.
You seem very strongly invested in this point, which is strange considering how easily refuted it is: Property existed long before third-party regulation. Rather than ownership being enforced by a third party with monopoly on violence, it was enforced by the threat of escalating violence from the property owners themselves. Eg. You take one goat from my herd and refuse to give it back, and we are now at war. Result:…
This doesn't mean property exists in the same way that objects exist. A piece of property is just a protected object.
Re: An anarchist takes on Big Pharma by teaching patients to make their own meds
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am astonished that a couple of the biggest insurance companies in the US haven't banded together to form a drug manufacturing co-op. Find stuff that's off-patent and build generics for things like epi-pens. The best bit (to my thinking) is after doing this to just a few drugs, the insurance companies would have a very big negotiating stick to go after other companies pricing off-patent drugs way over cost. If I kne…
"Find stuff that's off-patent and build generics" There are a lot of companies that do that.
But yet things like Epi-Pen price increases occur, so it seems like there's room for a lot more.
Re: An anarchist takes on Big Pharma by teaching patients to make their own meds
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am astonished that a couple of the biggest insurance companies in the US haven't banded together to form a drug manufacturing co-op. Find stuff that's off-patent and build generics for things like epi-pens. The best bit (to my thinking) is after doing this to just a few drugs, the insurance companies would have a very big negotiating stick to go after other companies pricing off-patent drugs way over cost. If I kne…
> Find stuff that's off-patent and build generics Indian pharma industry is mostly doing these. We export a lot of generics to other continents as well.
Indian pharma is not just manufacturing generics; the government also uses compulsory licensing to ignore patents.
Re: An anarchist takes on Big Pharma by teaching patients to make their own meds
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cost of medicine I require to be functional enough to hold down a job has risen so much that the copay is the equivalent of the entire out-of-pocket cost from a few years ago. The medication was discovered in 1969. The application method, which is the shitty excuse for the patents protecting its $2,200/month price tag, was first approved for use by the FDA in 1979. The drug has been for sale in it's current form…
Is it not possible to order a generic from India or another country? The drug should be out of patent a long while already? If no competitor is available, why doesn't anyone set it up? It looks like a great startup opportunity.
The drug is out of patent.
As soon as it went out of patent, they patented the drug + transdermal patch. So, in order to keep their profits up, everyone went without the patch system until their original patent was about to expire. So now they can charge $2,200 for something they developed in the 1990s, but intentionally kept off the market to monopolize.
This happens as a matter of course, with every new drug.
Without the transdermal system, I can't take the drug. I have to take too much of the active ingredient, and it causes pain and permanent hearing damage.
Thanks for suggesting grey market alternatives - I hadn't given it a thought. However, they would definitely be grey/black market, since it's not off-patent, which means there will be higher risks, and it will harder to obtain.
Re: An anarchist takes on Big Pharma by teaching patients to make their own meds
#200"He’s developing a desktop lab and a recipe book meant to equip patients to cook up a range of medicines, including a homemade version of the expensive hepatitis C drug Sovaldi, on their kitchen counters."
Any chemists here? Is it really plausible to synthesize C22H29FN3O9P at home?