I listen to NPR, I read The Nation, and I own every album Bob Dylan ever made. But I'm sick and tired of all the bad press that pharmaceutical companies have been getting lately. Fernando Meirelles's film The Constant Gardener is only one example -- in it, drug executives conspire to kill their critics, and the companies' desire for profit is derided with the line "No drug company does something for nothing." But in the real world, pharmaceutical companies are not so villainous. Here's why.
That the poor people of developing nations are not getting access to the drugs they need is a fact as indisputable as it is deplorable. Malaria causes at least 300 million acute illnesses and 1 million deaths annually, killing one African child every thirty seconds. Yet even the drug-resistant strains are readily treatable using artemisinin-based combination therapy -- it's just that sub-Saharan Africans cannot afford it. Anti-retroviral drugs, similarly, could greatly improve the quality and length of life of millions of people who are suffering from HIV/AIDS, but when you make less than $2 a day, as nearly half the world does, these drugs are a luxury that is far out of reach.
Many people, and I used to be one of them, are of the opinion that pharmaceutical companies are to blame for this disgusting situation. It is the easiest, most simplistic view: the drugs are available, I used to point out, but the greedy drug companies will not give them away free to people who cannot pay for them.
But should they? They're drug companies, not aid agencies, governments, or philanthropists. More than 16,000 children worldwide die of malnutrition every day, which is horrifying and inexcusable, but nobody is angry with Stop & Shop for wanting to make a profit or with Canadian wheat farmers for not giving their wheat away for free. Yet if I had a dollar for every time I heard an activist say, "Drug companies are killing people because they won't give medicines away to poor people who need them," I could eradicate malaria myself.
"Take away the profit motive and you take away innovation." I used to dismiss that line as pharmaceutical industry apologetics, but I now realize there is something to this line of reasoning. The second pill of an HIV drug may cost just pennies to make, but the first pill costs hundreds of millions of dollars in research and development. These costs must be recouped if companies are going to make newer, better drugs in the future -- something we all expect them to do.
Governments of developed and developing nations alike can and should commit more resources to redress this grievous injustice. But drug companies should not be expected to be in the business of charity -- they should concentrate their resources on producing life-saving drugs. If you feel, as I do, that the people of developing nations deserve access to these drugs, then contribute to the many NGOs who are dedicated to serving the needs of the world's impoverished, or convince governments that it is better to spend money on antiretrovials than on weapons.
We owe a lot to pharmaceutical companies. They've given us blockbuster drugs and vaccines that can save our lives and the lives of people in developing nations, and I feel better knowing that more are on the way. I only hope that governments, NGOs, and private donors can be as innovative in finding ways to get these advances to poor people as pharmaceutical companies have been in creating them.
Mara Burney was a research associate at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org, HealthFactsAndFears.com).
