Healthy Skepticism Library item: 2201
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: Journal Article
Maitland I.
Priceless goods: how should life-saving drugs be priced?
Bus Ethics Q 2002 Oct; 12:(4):451-80
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12708456
Abstract:
This article examines the ethical issues raised by the pricing of priceless goods. Priceless goods are defined as ones that are widely held to have some special non-market value that makes them unsuited for buying and selling. One subset of priceless goods is prescription drugs—particularly life-saving and life-enhancing ones. Drug makers are under pressure to price their medicines responsibly, which means to restrain their prices (and profits). However, this article argues that it is precisely because life-saving and life-enhancing medicines are priceless that it is especially urgent to leave companies free to charge market prices for them.
Keywords:
Advertising/economics
Anti-HIV Agents/economics
Commodification
Cost-Benefit Analysis
Drug Industry/economics*
Drug Industry/ethics*
Drugs, Essential/economics*
Ethics, Business
Freedom
Humans
Internationality
Moral Obligations
Patents
Social Responsibility
United States
Zidovudine/economics
analysis
United States
industry perspective
economics
bioethics
consumer drug prices
efficiency
HIV-AIDS
REGULATIONS, CODES, GUIDELINES: DIRECT GOVERNMENT REGULATION
