I guess it's politics day - drug companies

And it's only politics day because Mr. Liberal across the cube wall is spouting off about drug companies who don't want to cure disease because there's more money in treating the long term suffering from disease than curing it and losing the money stream, among other topics. Rather than spend two hours debating him on issues when it isn't really my time to waste, I'll blog to vent (so see, sometimes blogging on company time is theraputic and time saving.)

OK, maybe if there was only one drug company out there controlling all the world's cures, the conspiracy theory might have a chance. Maybe then, the one company could stifle innovation and stop the cure from reaching the shelves so they can continue lifetimes of bloodsucking by selling snakeoil that treats the symptoms and not the disease.

But don't you think if a guy comes up with a cure for the common cold, or M.S., or cancer, or AIDS, or whatever, he'd be all over making it available to everyone and making his own profit at the expense of the other companies that are just treating the symptoms? They could try to buy him out, but don't you think if he's curing diseases, even if any social conscience he might have got sucked out of his head, he'd be smart enough to know he can make more money selling what he has than being paid off by Merck? Isn't that what capitalism and competition and innovation are all about? If it were true that people conspire to stop progress for their own personal gain, don't you think the horse breeders would have assassinated Henry Ford before he could mass produce cars? Whalers would have stopped Thomas Edison in his tracks on this whole light bulb thing, and Texas Instruments headquarters would have been bombed into yesteryear by Houston Local #547 of the Almagated Abacus Makers Union.

Just because one guy isn't interested in innovation doesn't mean he can stop the rest of the world. Ya can't stop progress. I'm just not buying it.