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0 pointsNoMoreNicksLeft1y ago0 comments

> and alternative drugs for common diseases. After all, the return of investment on these types of drugs is much higher.

This isn't just some greedy behavior. Treating common diseases is how you reduce discomfort/misery the most, in aggregate. Aspirin for 100 million people who are 1.5 on the pain scale is more effective than some $50,000/pill analgesic for that one guy who happens to be at 11.

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jerojero1y ago

Aspirin already exists and improvements to it are marginal.

This kind of extreme utilitarian approach seems flawed when you view healthcare as a human right. Reducing pain from 1.5 to 1.4 to millions of people is not really as valuable as saving one person's life. That's my opinion at least.

Of course, developing a drug that could save thousands of lives or one life is a real problem that governments and pharmaceutical companies need to face. And I would agree that in this case a utilitarian view is helpful.

But on the other hand, companies are not making these decisions based on ethical frameworks. They're making them on a basis of shareholder profit maximization. When you talk about "reducing the pain" do you actually care about reducing pain or is that simply a positive externality to the profits you'll make.

whimsicalism1y ago

> When you talk about "reducing the pain" do you actually care about reducing pain or is that simply a positive externality to the profits you'll make.

people will pay a lot of money to save their life. to the extent that people cannot afford to save their life, government should subsidize.

NoMoreNicksLeftOP1y ago

> This kind of extreme utilitarian approach seems flawed when you view healthcare as a human right.

Of course it seems flawed when you're delusional and view absurdities as human rights. Do you have a right to rollercoaster rides? Do you have a right to jazz music? What about a right to gold jewelry? If you have these rights, then all sorts of other sensible principles seem flawed.

> But on the other hand, companies are not making these decisions based on ethical frameworks.

Why would that be necessary? Why do you think that whatever outcome you want actually requires making decisions in that way? And how could you ever guarantee that the decisions were made "based on ethical frameworks" even if law mandated it?

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