Pharma Execs Should Go to Jail and Pharma Should Be Publicly Run

*One vial of insulin cost $21 in 1996, compared to $320 in 2018. The cost of Big Pharma’s outrageous greed is American lives. If they will not end their greed, then we will end it for them.* —Bernie Sanders

Corporations are bundles of rights. The most important right is a shield from liability. Corporation rights used to be contentious–in particular, a lot of capitalists thought that it was wrong for corporate officers and owners to not be liable for wrongdoing and debts.

Corporations are given their special rights because it is assumed to be in the best interest of the public. Corporations exist, thus, to make the public better off. When they do not do so, they should be put down. (I would argue corporations have too many rights. Certainly they should not have personhood.)

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So, they’re murderers. Mass murderers. They take actions they will know will kill many people.

The sane response, beyond the simple, “Get them out of the business and have government take over drug research and manufacture,” which would lead to better, cheaper drugs relatively quickly, is to throw them in jail. They kill people in large numbers, and they know they are doing so.

And, in death-penalty states, well, hang them high.

That said, again, it is stupid to run drug research and manufacturing privately. The promotion budgets are larger than the research budgets, and the incentives are all wrong, leading to palliatives rather than cures and insufficient research in important drug classes like antibiotics.

There are things markets do well, but drug research isn’t one of them. (And, in fact, a vast amount of the money still comes from government and flows through universities, but the profits are privatized.)

Lock up the murderous executives, break up their companies, and move the research to public bodies.

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