As regards capitalist policies for drug patents, the author,...

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Mr. Przemek Kordasiewicz,

I agree wholeheartedly with your recommendation of a ban on all patents on all life saving medical discoveries. Again, I would take it a step further. I think that the virtues of a purely capitalist system seem to have fallen apart at this point. In this literal life-anddeath issue, ethics take priority over everything else.

Just as Congress stepped forward to place a ban on the patenting of surgical procedures, they need to step forward and place a similar ban on these new medical patents (drugs, procedures and human genome work) which are having the identical effect. Additionally, Congress need to heavily legislate in favor of patients worldwide to keep drug patents limited, short, and drug prices at an affordable level. Something in the system is wrong when drug companies are the most profitable of all publicly traded companies and huge populations across the world are living in pain and dying because they are unable to afford the sky-high drug prices, inflated by the patent holders’ monopoly. The government needs to look into the situation independently and take a stand for the well-being of the taxpayers and citizens they suppose to be representing. Thank you, Benjamin (Mako) Hill.

(Intellectual Property in Cyberspace 2000, http://yukidoke.org)