• Telorand@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      15 hours ago

      License and release it into the public domain: research, methods, processes, patents—the whole deal.

      Privatizing medicine, even elective medicine, just ensures predation.

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        14 hours ago

        I’m not following. Making the results public domain doesn’t prohibit private companies from manufacturing for profit.

        • Telorand@reddthat.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          15
          ·
          edit-2
          14 hours ago

          No, you got it. It’s not about prohibiting profit, it’s about preventing the exclusive ability to profit.

          Think of generic medicines (in the US) versus brand equivalents and how vast their cost difference is.

          • catloaf@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            12 hours ago

            Which is reasonable in principle, but when they sell the exclusivity, they’re and to put that money back into their research expenses.

            I’m okay with public money going to funding research projects that become private profit for a limited time. I’m a capitalist system, which is what we’re operating in, this seems to be the most effective. Government partially funds otherwise unprofitable R&D, companies make the product, and ordinary people are able to buy it at reasonable prices, and once exclusivity ends, anyone can make it.

            • Telorand@reddthat.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              10 hours ago

              That would be great, except in the US, that exclusivity can last for decades, which means entire generations will come and go before it becomes public.

              In a better-regulated system where consumers are put before corporate interests, it could work, but the US hasn’t been that for a long time.