How to find the cure for AIDS
It occurred to me last night while I was sleeping that there will never be a cure for AIDS until it is not longer profitable for drug manufacturers to dole out these supposed "treatments". I think this could even be made a broader argument. In the last 50 years the number of cures has dropped dramatically, but now everyone has chronic illnesses that have plausible treatments but absolutely no cure. Billions of dollars a year are made by pharmaceutical companies by these treatments and the loss of revenue a cure would represent would be akin to slashing their wrists with the proverbial knife.
So let me suggest a solution to this problem. There needs to be an economic incentive to make the drug companies stop developing treatments for arthritis and AIDS and even cancer. This would probably be a two pronged approach. First, you have to cut the time in half that drug patents are allowed to held. For example, if a company holds a patent on a "treatment" for the until that patent or trademark or copyright (whatever it is) runs out, only that company can make that specific drug. After that time any company can make the drug, usually at a considerable savings. So if the company got 20 years to milk in the profits from their little invention before, I suggest they only get 10 years. This method will encourage companies to invest in the creation of treatments still, but that they will not be allowed to do so for very long without heavy competition.
I also suggest there being a cap to the amount of money that a company is allowed to gain from any particular drug produced. I think that it's reasonable for companies to get a nice tidy profit from making the drugs, but I feel that if it cost them $1B to bring to market the should only be able to reap about $10B in profit from it. Any profits beyond that are placed in a holding account. This leads me to my second prong: The cure windfall profit.
This is how I think cures will start getting created and it all comes form an idea that came out of the Northridge Earthquake of 1996. After the earthquake a major overpass on Interstate 10 collapsed and traffic in Los Angeles was at a standstill. Since this was such a critical project in terms of time, and construction companies are renowned for stretching out their contracts, the city of Los Angeles offered a bonus for completing the contract under budget and under the estimated time.
So this is how my system works. A holding account for a particular disease (let's take AIDS) is established. All profits in excess of the cutoff amount are placed into this account. Since many different companies produce drugs that work on the same disease this means that companies are paying into the fund. Now the company who effectively cures (and the definition of cure would have to be one in which people can no longer transmit the infection or are no longer affected by the symptoms without a permanent reliance on a drug treatment) the disease or illness receives the entirety of the money in this account. This can amount to a hell of a lot of money. Especially if you start involving governments and charity groups who would also be putting a portion of their budgets into the fund.
Now that we've made it economical again to have cures instead of treatments it's only a matter of time before their found... right?
So let me suggest a solution to this problem. There needs to be an economic incentive to make the drug companies stop developing treatments for arthritis and AIDS and even cancer. This would probably be a two pronged approach. First, you have to cut the time in half that drug patents are allowed to held. For example, if a company holds a patent on a "treatment" for the until that patent or trademark or copyright (whatever it is) runs out, only that company can make that specific drug. After that time any company can make the drug, usually at a considerable savings. So if the company got 20 years to milk in the profits from their little invention before, I suggest they only get 10 years. This method will encourage companies to invest in the creation of treatments still, but that they will not be allowed to do so for very long without heavy competition.
I also suggest there being a cap to the amount of money that a company is allowed to gain from any particular drug produced. I think that it's reasonable for companies to get a nice tidy profit from making the drugs, but I feel that if it cost them $1B to bring to market the should only be able to reap about $10B in profit from it. Any profits beyond that are placed in a holding account. This leads me to my second prong: The cure windfall profit.
This is how I think cures will start getting created and it all comes form an idea that came out of the Northridge Earthquake of 1996. After the earthquake a major overpass on Interstate 10 collapsed and traffic in Los Angeles was at a standstill. Since this was such a critical project in terms of time, and construction companies are renowned for stretching out their contracts, the city of Los Angeles offered a bonus for completing the contract under budget and under the estimated time.
So this is how my system works. A holding account for a particular disease (let's take AIDS) is established. All profits in excess of the cutoff amount are placed into this account. Since many different companies produce drugs that work on the same disease this means that companies are paying into the fund. Now the company who effectively cures (and the definition of cure would have to be one in which people can no longer transmit the infection or are no longer affected by the symptoms without a permanent reliance on a drug treatment) the disease or illness receives the entirety of the money in this account. This can amount to a hell of a lot of money. Especially if you start involving governments and charity groups who would also be putting a portion of their budgets into the fund.
Now that we've made it economical again to have cures instead of treatments it's only a matter of time before their found... right?
posted by worldlee78 at
2:55 AM
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