Pills, pills, pills, pills...

[Raven]

Something I think we should add to the list of questions for the candidates: What do you propose to do about "Big Pharm"? This industry has a bigger lobby in DC than big oil. Tell me how many drug ads you see on tv in a given week. Tell me, of those ads, how many "disorders" have been invented by Big Pharm. Tell me what the average comsumer is supposed to think when they are told to ask their doc about the little "purple pill". If you are in your 20's, it may not matter but it will. Americans are being medicated...over medicated, I think. Just watch the ads for a week or so...they are directed to 40's - 60's+ folks mostly but they will eventually run the lives of younger folks and they will eventually run America...please think about this...just my opinion. Big Pharm adds a huge amount to the national health care bill and has a huge grip on our government.

[Greyhound]

1. Only the half of it. Another, and IMO, worse aspect of using the profit motive

to spur the development of drugs, is the types of drugs they develop and worse, the drugs they don't. If there are not enough people with a disease of condition, or if their plight is induced through/by poverty, there is no reason to pursue a cure or treatment. That's why we have 14 drugs to make your dick hard, but none for DiGeorge Syndrome, for example.

[Cobalt Violet]

2. Dennis Kucinich has a plan.

"How would it work? My bill would greatly increase funding for research and development of pharmaceuticals through the National Institutes of Health. The NIH would develop some research capacity in house and would fund other research at institutions like pharmaceutical companies, small biotech companies and universities. In exchange for accepting federal research dollars, all research findings would be made public and patents would be available to any company that wished to manufacture the drugs.

"The bill would not prevent anyone from getting a patent. But patented drugs developed with private funding would have to compete with drugs whose research and development was publicly funded, which would be difficult. The result would be that most drug research would be publicly funded.

"My bill also corrects another major problem with pharmaceuticals today: The pharmaceutical companies are getting less efficient. They are increasingly turning out drugs that are less important to public health because they’re not as profitable. For example, roughly 70% of new FDA approved drugs are copycats or "me too" drugs which are small variations on existing drugs, usually done to reduce R&D costs and extend the patent life of an existing drug. We should be focusing instead on breakthrough drugs that require more basic research but may not be as profitable. How many more Viagra knockoffs do we need? Our research priorities would be better decided by the world renowned NIH, which houses several Nobel Laureates.

http://kucinich.us/issues/prescriptiondrugs.php


I feel like the other candidates don't really want to make firm plans with this and with other issues. DK put it all out. I know where he stands on almost everything. Other candidates don't give too many specifics. And no, I'm not working for him.

[Raven]

4. DK is not going to be the nominee

unfortunately. How do we bird dog the other candidates on this? I notice that they are quite silent on the subject.

[Cobalt Violet]

5. The other candidates are too silent on too many issues for me.

I don't know. I've emailed other candidates about their postions on other issues and NEVER get a reaponse. I don't like that. I don't know what to do.

[Raven]

6. Birddog, birddog, birddog...

I'm in NH so that's easy for me to say...these folks are here constantly and I can be there in the crowd and ask the birddog questions...for folks who are in states that are ignored, I'd say to keep emailing, someone is keeping track even if you don't get a response, just keep at it! It is pretty weel established that these candidates do listen, especially now, to the issues that folks care about...keep at it!

[AX10]

3. We are over-medicated. There is no question about that.

Corporations are out of control (some worse than others). Just as they were before the Great Depression. It's time to bring some regulation back into the fold. This deregulation crap is the doing of Ray-gun. This country has been moving towards corpro-fascism ever since that beast got into office in 1980.