spotshares.blogg.se

Pharmaceutical monopoly history
Pharmaceutical monopoly history









It is the story of how monopoly medicine came to be, from the earliest debates over the morality and practical value of granting monopolies on life-saving inventions, to the globalization of this right by Washington on a basis of forced consent.

#PHARMACEUTICAL MONOPOLY HISTORY HOW TO#

This is not a book about how to hasten the combustion of monopoly medicine, or about the many fine alternatives that could take its place to humanity’s benefit. If the state ceases to grant, enforce, and extend exclusive rights to the production and sale of drugs and medicines, the power to spin private gold from public investment and human illness combusts and disappears, like the purified bone dust phosphorus of alchemy legend. The kind of wealth amassed by the pharmaceutical industry can be created only by the political magic of monopoly.

pharmaceutical monopoly history

The science, once released, can be copied, in most cases very easily. The products these companies sell have value, but not so much as to surpass all the gold that’s ever been mined. The industry’s Merlins aren’t its scientists and technicians but its patent lawyers and lobbyists. The magic behind this feat has nothing to do with synthesizing common molecules into more valuable ones. During that same period, the value of the world’s total gold reserves crested at just over $7 trillion. Between 20, the thirty-five largest drug companies reported cumulative gross profits of almost $9 trillion. But the foundations of modern chemistry and pharmacy were laid in those discoveries made in failure, and upon them grew an industry that over the last century finally achieved the elusive sorcery of turning base elements into precious gold.Ĭonsider this. The alchemic grail known as the philosopher’s stone was never found. The alchemist probed nature in pursuit of the unnatural, of eternal life and the power to make silver from lead and turn copper into gold. In the beginning, there was alchemy, a fusion of metallurgy and magic. The following is an excerpt from Alexander Zaitchik’s book, “Owning The Sun: A People’s History of Monopoly Medicine from Aspirin to Covid-19 Vaccines” (Counterpoint Press, March 2022) and is reprinted with permission from the publisher. Detailing how generations of public health and science advocates have attempted to hold the line against Big Pharma and its allies in government, Alexander documents the rise of medical monopoly in the United States and its subsequent globalization.Īlexander Zaitchik is a freelance investigative journalist whose writing has appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, The Intercept, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Foreign Policy, VICE, and The Baffler, among many other publications. In his new book, Owning the Sun: A People’s History of Monopoly Medicine from Aspirin to Covid-19 Vaccines, New Orleans-based investigative journalist Alexander Zaitchik tells the story of Big Pharma by exploring the contentious fight over the legal right to control the production of life-saving pharmaceuticals. Today big pharmaceutical companies profit off of manufacturing scarcity and building monopolies on restricting access to life-saving medicines.

pharmaceutical monopoly history

Before, knowledge grew and evolved, never depleting in store as it spread to other people. Now, privatized commodification of knowledge and medicine threatens our collective existence.

pharmaceutical monopoly history

Through implementing the gifts of shared knowledge, humans have collectively uplifted the abundance of life we share in. For centuries, human civilization developed through shared innovation that advances us forward.









Pharmaceutical monopoly history