Back on the topic of the thread, it’s a big problem, and not one I see an easy solution to. On the one hand, if it all depended on doing things for the good of mankind, honestly, we wouldn’t have a lot of the drugs we have now. On the other hand, the focus on making a slightly different version of a current drug to keep your patent protection alive, then spending more on advertizing than you do on R&D is galling.

But what’s the alternative? We complain about Pharma spending so much on promotion, but doctors have a huge number of drugs to choose from, and it’s expecting a lot for them to know all the research on all of them And the revenues from Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, etc pay for R&D on cancer drugs as well.