Awaiting Moderation -- At CafePharma. . . .

Once again, while I await moderation at CafePharma (in a discussion of Pfizer's $2.3 billion plea agreement of last week) -- here is my answer to an anonymous poster's comment -- but first, the anonymous comment:

. . . .Sir, with all due respect, you should move to France.

Pfizer should be able to market it's [sic] property the most profitable way possible. Profit is good. Companies that make profits hire more employees and everyone benefits, even the tax collectors.

And yes, taking money in the form of fines and confiscatory taxes and re-distributing to others is legalized stealing. . . .

-- /s/ Anonymous
Today, 01:08 AM

I too am a capitalist, sir. Believe it. What you, sir, fail to appreciate is that Pfizer's goods -- and Schering-Plough/Merck's goods, for that matter -- are entirely opaque to the general public.

That is, the consumer must rely upon trusted experts to decide whether the good is worthy of purchase, at a given price -- or at any price.

The trusted expert must, in turn, in some measure, rely upon the honesty of the manufacturer -- in accurately reporting all studies -- including null-result studies -- on a drug (the opaque good).

If Schering-Plough (or Merck, or Pfizer) is allowed to "game the system" -- or, in your words: "market it's [sic] property the most profitable way possible" -- people occasionally die. See, Vioxx.

And they die in ways that their doctors could not have imagined they might -- simply because the drug manufacturer allegedly hid, or simply failed to disclose, all it knew about the drug.

Profit is indeed "good", in my book. But when the seller (Merck, Schering-Plough or Pfizer) possesses such an overwhelming "information advantage" -- and that advantage more than occassionally controls whether a patient is POISONED -- or "cured". . . I'd say this:

"REGULATION is also GOOD." And, in the case of these companies -- obviously -- REQUIRED."

Note also that pharma is alone in all of the capitalist world, in that it is granted a decidedly "uncapitalistic" advantage: pharma's products enjoy at least 17 year monopolies -- from FDA and the USPTO. No competitors' wares may be offered into that market-space -- and the FDA's approval creates some powerful barriers -- to the redress of any injuries allegedly caused by these entirely opaque goods.

I'd love to believe that all pharma companies would solely put good science, and curing people before their laudatory desire to make profits (which leads correlatively to the desirable ability employ more people, and thus drive the nation's economic growth) -- but we know, in the main, they don't. At BEST, they put the two goals on EQUAL footing; at worst -- they follow your route: "Profit, first, last, always and only." [My thesis is that profit is largely a means to an end -- the end being full employment, a stable economy, and individual wealth-building (in that order). Yours apparently presumes that profit, itself, is the sole end-goal.]

So, I would say, you should rethink your life -- if that is, in fact, what you really believe. By the way, I love France -- and spend time there as often as I can. But I do prefer my own home -- here in America -- it offers a nice balance.

Namaste