On Nov. 10, Eli Lilly, one of three pharmaceutical companies that collectively dominate the global insulin market, tweeted out, “we are excited to announce that insulin is free now.” With the adorned blue check, normally an indicator of a verified celebrity or corporate twitter account, the announcement went semi-viral. Eli Lilly’s stock price tumbled and many online laughed at how Twitter seemed to be imploding after a few short weeks with Elon Musk at the helm. But when one looks just slightly past the weeds of trolls and memes, contradictions inherent to capitalism smack you straight in the face.
Read More
The Savior of the World. El Greco.
Big Pharma, the Parasite
Society’s relationship with big pharma is love-hate. We despise how expensive new, life-saving drugs are, but we bite the bullet because the profit motive promotes the pharmaceutical industry to innovate like no other. That is a myth. Scientists working at universities and in the non-profit sector do the hard work. They lay the biological groundwork for pharma to swoop in at the last second and patent cures. Pharma is parasitic. Scientists can and should be in charge of nationalized pharmaceutical strategy because the current system is broken.
Read More