Reclaim Democracy!

  • Home
  • Issues
    • The Right to Vote
      • U.S. Voting History
      • 50+ Ways to Disenfranchise or Suppress Voters
    • Corporate Personhood
    • Citizens United
    • Direct Democracy
    • All Topics
  • Resources
    • Ed Board Meetings
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Op-eds
    • Presentations & Workshops
    • Talk Radio
    • Tools for Activism
  • Donate
  • About
  • Contact

NY Times Rails Against Fake Drugs, but Ignores the Role of Corporate Power in Creating the Demand

December 3, 2012 by staff

by Reclaim Democracy staff
December 3, 2012

a victim of fake drugs? Among the many awful consequences of  many essential pharmaceuticals being priced beyond the reach of those who need them is the proliferation of fake drugs. While some counterfeit drugs are  manufactured by unauthorized producers and simply flout patent law, less scrupulous people are making pills or serums with no active ingredients or even toxic substances.

It’s a deadly problem in need of solutions, so it’s unsurprising the New York Times devoted a recent editorial to “The Problem of Fake and Useless Drugs.”But while the Times editors called for several sensible measures, they did readers a huge disservice by neglecting to mention the primary reason why fake drugs are so prevalent: federal actions that ban market competition, creating artificially high prices that are unaffordable to many who need them.

First, our patent laws grant pharmaceutical corporations long monopolies on essential drugs — even though a majority of the most medically-significant drugs derive from taxpayer-funded research (a situation we described a decade ago, but continues today). These exclusive patents enable companies to charge prices unrelated to costs of research and development or production. *

Further, pharmaceutical corporations routinely employ legal manipulations, illicit non-compete agreements and other tactics to further extend patent monopolies and block production of generic competitors that lower prices.

To make matters worse, federal laws ban importation of drugs or even re-importation of genuine drugs manufactured here. Under the guise of protecting consumers from counterfeit drugs, such laws enable gouging that forces us to regularly pay double or triple the price people pay for identical drugs in other nations, driving the demand for cheap counterfeits.

Of course, when privately-funded research yields an important new drug, the creators should be able to reap significant rewards in order to create strong incentives for real research and development. The trouble is, our present patent system rewards political power above innovation.

And when drugs are developed with publicly-funded research, we should contract private companies to produce them at a fair profit, not give away rights to valuable public property.

We’ve been thrilled to see the Times editors call for amending the Constitution twice in recent months to revoke the runaway political power of corporations, in recent months. This excessive power over agencies that purportedly serve the public underlies the tragedy of fraudulent drugs and the lives they claim.

The  arguments by the NY Times editors, and those made by all who call to revoke corporate personhood, will possess more power if they make such real-life impacts clear.

* See, for example, the current controversy over the AIDS drug Norvir.

Sources for further reading on this topic:

  • How to Lower the Price of Prescription Drugs by Dean Baker, June 2011.
  • The $800 Million Pill (book) by Merrill Goozner, 2004. Goozner’s blog (no longer updated as of Oct. 2012) also is a great resource.
  • Against Monopoly (blog).
  • Stagnation in the Drug Development Process: Are Patents the Problem? March 2007, Dean Baker

image courtesy bayat

  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Corporate Accountability, Corporate Welfare / Corporate Tax Issues, Food, Health & Environment, Free Trade

Search our website

Our Mission

Reclaim Democracy! works toward a more democratic republic, where citizens play an active role in shaping our communities, states, and nation. We believe a person’s influence should be based on the quality of their ideas, skills, and energy, and not based on wealth, race, gender, or orientation.

We believe every citizen should enjoy an affirmative right to vote and have their vote count equally.

Learn more about our work.

Donate to Our Work

We rely on individual gifts for more than 95% of our funding. Our hard-working volunteers make your gift go a long way. We're grateful for your help, and your donation is tax-deductible.

Join Us on Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Weekly Quote

"The great enemy of freedom is the alignment of political power with wealth."

-- Wendell Berry

Copyright © 2025 · Reclaim Democracy!