What is this world in which we live where a country’s economic and financial health supercedes the health of its people?
The New York Times reports that Indonesia, the world’s leader in Avian Flu cases, is in negotiations to sell their flu samples to an American vaccine company. Monetary incentives have always been able to lure supposedly noble people away from their noble causes. But, as Techdirt reports, the pharmaceutical industry seems to have taken the cake.
It’s no secret that pharmaceutical industry objectives do not always line up with the objective of improved overall health and the curing of diseases. An industry is designed to make profit. Who can blame them?
But is a country considered to be an industry? Isn’t the government of any given country meant to represent its people and implement the policies that are in their best interest? Is a country not a member of a larger global community in which it is in the world population’s best interests to work together?
Oh wait…I must have been dreaming for a second.
“Creating incentives to allow people (and on a larger scale, organizations and countries) to share knowledge is no small task. But in this case, incentives are in place that go against the very nature of human knowledge sharing (and in this case, the progress of medical science).” is how Lucas McDonnell so eloquently puts it.
I have to say that I am inclined to agree.
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[...] Ironically, the post immediately before that is about how the patent system is keeping Indonesia from sharing avian flu samples (for more about this, check out HealthySimplicity’s post Indonesia’s avian flu samples). [...]
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