Drug Companies

The Harvard Health Letter
A current issue of the Havard Health Letter published a list of the top ten health stories of 2006. Although all of these issues deal with health stories, most of them also have much of a business ethics aspect. Once again, Chris Macdonald's Business Ethics Blog has helped me to furthur my research. Here are his thoughts on the issue, "The lesson: across the world, most health care is delivered either by, or with the help of, business. The decisions corporations make matter to our health. So, it follows almost trivially that most health-related news is also going to be related to business ethics."
Here are some of the topics covered in this issue, my comments, and there relation between health issues and business ethics. Once again it is impossible to actually read these articles without a subscription, so I will include a summary for those of you who do not feel like paying twenty-four bucks to follow up on this. :)
Germ warfare—and the germs are winning some battles.
Big Ol' drug companies are now researching to create drugs for some "illnesses" that don't need them. Oh, you got germs and now you have a small cold and a runny nose. The drug company wants you to purchase their medicine to make your cold end tomorrow, instead of in two or three days. Just another way for them to make money. Is it really fair that the companies that are supposed to be helping the public's health, are more interested in the profits made by selling drugs to the public. If they are making more money by letting a disease continue through the use of buying drugs every month to slow it down, why make a drug to stop it? Their profits need to be 2nd in the line of importance, although today it seems their priorities are ordered through greed.
Vaccines, kid stuff no more.
When we are little, we receive every vaccination possible, or else we are not allowed to continue on with our education. As time has passed, the drug companies realized that they can extend their markets to adults, by having certain vaccinations be required for college, or even for a career. Just another place to prove drug companies' wonderful values, morals, and ethics.
Calls for FDA reform getting louder and clearer.
Finally, comone noticed that maybe we need to watch these drug companies' actions. They key issue in this article is that drug companies need to do more to moniter drugs once they are "on the market" or in the bodies of the public. Why would drug companies want to spend extra money on monitering this, when it causes them no benefit?