Biting the Hand that Could Save Them. A
frightening piece on how the high-pressure anti-market demands of
AIDS activists has contributed to a big falloff in the number of
new AIDS drugs in development --
AIDS Activists Hinder Their Cause " can be read via a link to
the international edition of the Jerusalem Post (and was brought to
our attention by Andrewsullivan.com). The
author, Roger Bate of the organization Africa Fighting Malaria,
reports that:
There are between 5% and 30% fewer anti-AIDS drugs in development than there were a few years ago". Companies producing anti-AIDS drugs were developing fewer products than in the late 1990s. The reduction found was almost a third lower in 2001 than in 1998.
And one likely cause? According to Dr. Des Martin, president of
the South African HIV Clinicians Society:
"Among several reasons, the threat of generic competition and attacks on multinational companies could be behind the recent decline in HIV anti-retroviral compounds," [Dr. Martin] says. The latter point is one that the pharma industry apparently does not want discussed widely.
However, admits one drug industry executive:
"we have lost the battle with the activists, and now the market is less profitable. The result is that we are spending less R&D time on anti-retrovirals. Why bother to innovate these products when any advance will not be profitable?"
Actions DO have consequences, and attacking the engines of
innovation because they"re driven by (gasp) the profit-motive may
have deadly consequences.
--Stephen H. Miller