news you can use

LIVES DEPEND ON DRUG PROFITS

Aug. 28, 2001

MARINA DEL REY, CA--Brazil's government has declared that it will seize the formula for Viracept, a drug used to fight AIDS, and manufacture it without compensation to Hoffman-La Roche Ltd.

This is just the beginning of a worldwide trend, said Robert Tracinski, a columnist for Creators Syndicate and fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. Other poor nations, especially in Africa, are expected to follow Brazil's lead, seizing the formulas of patented drugs and making pirated knock-offs--all justified by the claim that they are putting 'lives before profits.' But this ignores the fact that attacking the profits of drug developers destroys the incentive to create new drugs.

This is just one aspect of a deeper injustice, said Tracinski. The message sent by Viracept's theft goes beyond any mere economic incentive; it is a message about a society's moral priorities. To seize the patent on a life-saving drug is to punish its creators. It is to deny their right to the value of what they have created. It says to scientists, inventors, and businessmen: If you produce something of value to mankind, you will get nothing but threats and condemnation and expropriation in return.

The U.S. government needs to take a stand for the patent rights of its citizens, said Tracinski. It needs to put an immediate stop to Brazil's destructive policy of looting the scientists and innovators who create the life-saving drugs on which we depend. But to do that, we need to reverse our own moral priorities--and understand how lives depend on the freedom to make profits.

Ayn Rand Institute senior fellow Robert Tracinski is available for interviews.

Design copyright Scars Publications and Design. Copyright of individual pieces remain with the author. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...