orphan drug patients dying for lack of profits...

There was a "Dr. Gouta" {sp} article on CNN about a little girl who was
dying from a rare cancer. She was treated with an expensive drug. She
was beating this disease when her MD was told that there was only enough
of the drug for sixty (60) patients.

The unnamed drug company's bean counters decided that they would never
be able to recoup the development and manufacturing costs for this drug
so the company would stop producing it. After all, the company had to
account to their stock holders and would be held accountable for
deliberately losing money. That "wouldn't be prudent"! The fact that
future patients would die is incidental and too damn bad!

Why not give other companies the patient rights to manufacture this
needed drug? Oh, if this compnay can't make money off a drug, then no
one else should be able to. "Wouldn't be prudent!"

My wife and I were furious when we heard this. We can just hope this
company gets buried under "wrongful death" suits. But, pessimistically,
this company will probably get judges to throw the suits out or more
likely, buy politicians who will pass special laws to protect the
unnamed company. (Opps! I can't say "buy politicians". That could be
slander. I guess I should say "give big donations to politicians who
then pass bills to benefit given drug companies". My question: will
these politicians be what Robert A. Heinlein called "honest
politicians"? That is "politicians who stay bought". We'll see.)

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