Mark Weisbrot’s “Public interest trumps right to drug patents” (Commentary, Nov. 1) is so rife with distortion and misinformation that it hardly qualifies as a point of view.
He denigrates “the principle of patent rights for multibillion dollar pharmaceutical companies” when, in reality, what is being protected is the property rights of the tens of thousands of individuals who own a piece of this pejoratively labeled “big drug company.”
The fact that Cipro is “cheap to produce” is also a red herring. Software, CDs and DVDs are cheap to produce, so should I be able to buy them for the pennies they cost to make? This analysis ignores the enormous pre-production costs of these products and the resultant disincentives that such thievery would cause.
Even if the cost of research and development, etc., is added back in, you still miss what ought to be the standard for measuring price. It’s not what it costs to produce something that counts but, rather, what it’s worth to the end-user.
That’s why someone is willing to pay $3.50 for 6 cents worth of beer at Soldier Field. If my all-inclusive cost to produce a kidney drug is $500 per year per person, but people are willing to pay $10,000 per year because it saves their lives, then that is the fair price.
This is how wealth is created. There is no other way to do it.
If some folks can’t afford something, then there are other ways to get it to them. That is then correctly seen as charity or a government goodie. Vilifying the producer of a product instead is exceedingly counterproductive and dangerous.
But Mr. Weisbrot is totally over-the-top in characterizing as “proposed human sacrifices” the “36 million people in developing countries who have HIV or AIDS.” This implies that the “big drug companies” are solely responsible for any Third World AIDS deaths. This is absurd.
First, many cases of HIV are contracted through voluntary choices, such as sex with prostitutes or intravenous drug abuse. These people hardly qualify as the blameless victims implicit in Mr. Weisbrot’s argument.
Second, stripping shareholders of their property rights is not the only means of giving these people essentially free drugs. The government or private charities could buy the drugs and distribute them to the Third World. This would have the advantages of affirming individual property rights, clarifying the true cost of the program and engendering a genuine debate on the wisdom of Americans indemnifying others for poor personal choices.
But, why let reason get in the way of a good anti-capitalist screed?
