Tzahi Fadida <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Lets see if I understand you correctly. A company created an AIDS > cocktail. now, because it was so expensive for them to create, they > want a return in the short term, i.e.: 3-5 years. Taking your > perspective, would also mean that 1 third from the third world can > just stick their heads in the sand and hope some miracle dust will > cure them. This method is ridiculous, and should be > prohibited. Greedy profiteers always existed throughout history > enjoying the suffering of the weak and helpless.
If Merck or Pfizer or whatever pharmaceutical developing AIDS cocktails were required to give away the results of their research and development effort to third world countries for peanuts, they would not bother to start their research in the first place. How would that help the third world countries? > Also, these so called free market and "I want to make a profit from > what 'I' invent" did not take their knowledge from thin air, but > studied at a university or a college. And paid for that. And went to Glaxo to apply the skills they got - for hire. And it was 'they' who invented things, and not others, in part because they had invested in their education. And incidentally, the IP rights belong to their employers, who paid their salaries, who paid for the hi-tech equipment (the people who produced it also deserve getting paid, after all), who paid the rent, etc. Yes, there were quite a few financial transactions along the way to development, and yes, our society places a higher tag on the highly skilled labor involved in producing AIDS cocktails than on the low-skilled labor of growing maize in Africa or laying bricks in Russia. There is nothing inherently wrong or unjust about it. Now, let me remind ya'all that this grew really OT. ;-) -- Oleg Goldshmidt | [EMAIL PROTECTED] "IBM is a pretty big company." [W. Gates] ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
