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by lend000 969 days ago
This meme of becoming bankrupt to pay for drugs doesn't hold water, especially in the long term.

Look at HIV medications. It used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to stay afloat in the 90's, when the drugs were cutting edge.

Fast forward 30 years, and you can find generic antivirals for $110/month. As patents expire, medicines become more affordable. HIV is slowly approaching "cured disease" status in the western world for new infections, and is an increasingly manageable disease for existing infections.

It's better that some people could get the drug in the early days, funding the research that would save millions in the coming generation, even if others couldn't afford it.

The logic in this thread is just flummoxing. So many people irrationally hate companies that make lots of money so vehemently, even if the companies profit by saving lives that would be guaranteed to suffer/die without that company's profit-seeking efforts.

1 comments

Insulin is a better example than HIV drugs in terms of drugs costing far more than they should.