[thechat] pure evil: Tobacco giant buys rights to lung cancer drugs

[Luther, Ron]

Awww Spin, it's the ultimate in vertical integration, my man!  

Maintain that market share -- literally!

I dunno. I think it kind of appeals to me. (In a woefully misbegotten
sort of way, of course!)  The article doesn't read like some sort of
"we'll buy this and bury the results (like the oft-running hoax of some
oil company buying up the rights to a 150 MPG carburetor so they can
prevent it's manufacture)" -- it reads as a "DOH! - the longer we keep
smokey joe alive - the more money we make - if we allocate 3% to
research we'll recover 11% in prolonged revenue!".

Which is better or more 'moral'?  An industry that spends 50 years
sticking their head in the sand - denying and attacking any evidence
that smoking causes lung cancer ... or an industry that might spend the
next 50 years researching drugs and techniques to prevent lung cancer -
EVEN IF the only reason they do so is to make more money off smokers?

I may not have the answer to the question I just posed, but I'm pretty
sure of two things; (1) this industry has some seriously deep pockets,
and (2) research often leads to 'secondary' findings that often have
very valuable applications.


RonL.
[... wondering if he should raise the old issue of the 'morality' of
military funding for university level research (in any number of
fields)]

-----Original Message-----
From: spinhead [mailto:evolt at spinhead.com]
Subject: Re: [thechat] pure evil: Tobacco giant buys rights to lung
cancer drugs

This is infinitely more distressing than whether or not Microsoft is a
monopoly. I'm really puzzled that anyone has moral capacities limited
enough
that they could do this.