[A2k] Nobel Laureate Attacks Medical Intellectual Property

[Jeff Williams]

All,

  There are some among us all whom are of the belief that, "Marketing
is Education and Education is marketing".  And indeed such is true if
done honestly and equitably.  Here ( see below ) is an example
of where, at a minimum, the "equitably" condition is not met:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_E._Stiglitz
 http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7582/1279

"Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who was fired
by the World Bank [1]blasted drug patents in an editorial in the
British Medical Journal titled 'Scrooge and intellectual property
rights.' 'Knowledge is like a candle, when one candle lights another
it does not diminish its light.' In medicine, patents cost lives.
The US patent for turmeric didn't stimulate research, and restricted
access by the Indian poor who actually discovered it hundreds of years
ago. 'These rights were intended to reduce access to generic medicines
and they succeeded.' Billions of people, who live on $2-3 a day, could
no
longer afford the drugs they needed. Drug companies spend more on
advertising and marketing than on research. A few scientists beat the
human genome project and patented breast cancer genes; so now the cost
of
testing women for breast cancer is 'enormous.'"

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obediance of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
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