Business ethics is an oxymoron.  California skeptics are committed to reporting on the incredible amount of harm caused by the intrusion of market-place forces upon our medical system. It isn’t how much better off we are from the snake-oil days, but how much better off we would be if we took Big PHARMA out of the mix.  Nearly every new drug and thus treatment has been made worse by Big PhARMA’s drive to maximize profits.  The same can be said of our managed health care system (managed for profits).   Our medical treatment system rates as the worse among developed countries—ranked 40^th by the W.H.O..          

Even more telling is the British Medical journal’s article which goes into what has gone wrong with the U.S. health-care system

JK’s wish list

1).  Long-term independent monitoring of side effects by independent researchers. Easily done thought available data banks of Veterans Administration, Kaiser Permanente, and Medicare.  Such studies cost about 1/1,000^th that of a long-term clinical trial.

2). Require reporting of side effects with incentives and penalties administered through a university panel of professors.   

3).  Prompt follow-up on important side effects by independent researchers. 

4).  Permit only independent university medical colleges to run clinical trials and the drug companies couldn’t select where (use random pool method).

5). The researchers/institution would exclusively own the results and their publication rights.

6)   Make readily available for free over the internet   an easy to peruse form the results of studies and reports of side effects which would include comparisons to similar drugs

7).  For FDA approval, heads on-testing (rather than being more effective than a placebo).

8).  When appropriate require that 1/4^th those in clinical trial be over the age of 60. 

9).  Key positions in the FDA be filled by researchers without ties to PhARMA. 

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10)  Limit PhARMA activities to research for and manufacturing of drugs, and thus eliminate the sales (including advertising), lobbying, and educational activities. 

11). Forbid direct to consumer ads and ads to doctors.  The medical universities would be in charge of making decisions as to what is to be marketed and for what, like what is done with NICE in the UK. 

12).  Eliminate the ability to extend patents, and also other ways that PhARMA delays the introduction of generic drugs.

13).  Eliminate funding of the FDA from PhARMA for the approval of new drugs, since this provides for the FDA an incentive to approve drugs, even ones not worth taking. 

14)  Side effects would have on package and insert a quantification of side effects in legible size print. 

15)  Require independent accounting of PhARMA companies books, and make it public.

16). Fund from profits on drugs a grant system for university medical basic research. 

17). Establish as measure of a drug a profit and distribution system based only upon service to the public weal