I can't find anything here that Joe Stiglitz hasn't said before. There is the familiar populist rabble rousing in the place of analysis. And there is the usual trashing of "corporate profits" to get us salivating instead of thinking.



The truth that Stiglitz et al. dare not speak is that today's profits are tomorrow's new drugs. Pharmaceutical profits are what mobilize the animal spirits of investors and entrepreneurs to discover new drugs. Yes, it is an expensive business, but the social returns are staggeringly high. The social returns, say, from HCV drugs dwarf the puny private returns to drug companies. Do the math!



Where is the evidence that Stiglitz's pet proposals for financing drug research will be less costly than the present system? I hope there is something substantive in the underlying study, because you won't find it here. There is every reason to think their reforms will cost the same or more and will stifle the incentives for drug research in red tape, bureaucratic delay and crony socialism.



Why do Stiglitz et al. think the lion's share of new blockbuster drugs have originated in the labs of US-based drug companies? You can't beat something with nothing. Before we "socialize" pharmaceutical R&D, let's demand proof that Stiglitz et al.'s proposed reforms won't cost the lives of more kids than they save.



Nor do I believe their pose as champions of developing countries. Where would South Africa be today if HIV/AIDS drugs had not been developed in the first place? Or Egypt and India without HCV drugs? Look, the brute fact is that Third World governments can't promise to expand access to medicines that don't exist. The health and well-being of the sick -- and those who will become sick -- around the world depend on the vitality of pharma and biotech companies. I don't see how trashing them helps the sick anywhere. Pardon my mixed metaphor: It just kills the chicken that lays the magic bullet.