Attach one big ‘Citation Needed’ to the whole thing, but especially these bits.
So, it seems that a trivially obtainable chemical has been openly documented to cure AIDS. But the only thing stopping anyone on the planet that is suffering from AIDS from being cured is the threat of patent litigation? So it goes like this?
Dude, you’ve got AIDS, and you’re going to die.
There is no cure?
Hell yes, there is this stuff tetrasilver tetroxide that will cure you.
So can I have some?
Can’t do.
Why?
Its patented.
So no-one will sell me any?
No, it is easy to get, but you can’t use it to cure AIDS.
Why not?
Well if the guy that owns the patent found out, he might sue you.
So I’m going to die.
Yup.
Since Derleth missed a spot: cite please. That one should be easy to find if such a thing were ever said (or indeed hinted at).
It isn’t obvious? A quick google gets a story talking about how AIDS patients can expect to expend 600,000 dollars for what remains of their lives on average; there’s no way a $600,000 vaccine would be marketable. And a $600,000 cure would be almost as hard to market.
And the government would be more likely to come up with a cure or vaccine because it doesn’t suffer from the same kind of perverse incentives.
Why would it to be easy to find something I read probably at least 10 years ago? It wasn’t a big story at the time.
The increase is stock price for being the sole patentee for a cure for AIDS is far more than the company would get from selling AIDS drugs. The company executives’ stock options would make them a Tom and the stockholders would be ecstatic, especially since they will have a monopoly on the cure.
Urban legends rarely are.
This assumes Company A is the sole source of both the drugs the patients need and the cure that they won’t release. If I were Company B, what is to prevent me from releasing a cure that is modified enough to get around the patent? Or for that matter, AIDS activists could just start producing the cure and let the patent holder sue them out of existence. The cure would be out of the bag, good luck putting it back in.
Not to mention the fact that for a very long time afterwards, people would remember them as “those guys that found the AIDS cure”. That’s got to be good for business.
Yup. Anyone that created The Cure for AIDS or The Cure for Cancer (even less plausible) would be rich beyond their wildest dreams due to investments by others in their company, and would get the absolute best scientists willing to give up their left arms to work for them. Considering how few diseases we’ve actually wiped off the face of the planet, something like this would be earth-shaking.
Plus you have to assume that every single person who had access to this information at a company would have to be willing to let their affected friends, loved ones, and other assorted people in their lives die pointless, horrible deaths, without ever leaking The Truth or stealing said knowledge and running off to another company with it to become rich beyond their wildest dreams or at least not let more people they care about die too young.
A lot of people find Objectivism obvious.
You’re making a ton of unsupported assumptions, mainly that the only way to profit from a cure is to sell the drugs. Ferret Herder has a good point here.
Also, just to forestall something I’ve seen you claim before: Most drugs come from corporations. This means drug companies are doing a hell of a lot of research. You will only challenge this with a cite from someone who knows what they’re talking about.