Drug Companies Want Your Money
Two thematically-related stories on the BBC at the moment:
UK drug company Glaxo ‘paid bribes to Polish doctors’
UK drug company GlaxoSmithKline is facing a criminal investigation in Poland for allegedly bribing doctors, BBC Panorama has discovered.
Tamiflu: Millions wasted on flu drug, claims major report
Hundreds of millions of pounds may have been wasted on a drug for flu that works no better than paracetamol, a landmark analysis has said.
The fact is that drug companies exist to make a profit. Improving the health of people in countries in which they operate is not their primary goal - it is just one of the ways in which they make money.
If you want to improve public health in the most efficient way, drug companies need to be kept out of the decision-making process.