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I guess I was trying to suggest in a tongue-in-cheek way that gp's comment might be disingenuous or contain some sort of fallacy. I mean, there are plenty of ways that drug companies can benefit or be a scourge on humanity. Just consider the EpiPen pricing debacle. Is it a benefit to humanity when the demand for a life-saving product is leveraged to maximize profits, extracting the livelihood from the people it's supposed to be saving?

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That portion of the drug industry is rather surreal. I don't mind folks making a profit, mind you, but I do mind folks obviously taking advantage of people with little real choice.

I'm not even sure there is a one-size-fits-all answer to such things. That particular case seemed to be obviously one of greed, but most cases aren't as obvious. The most obvious (to me) would be some sort of price justification on new drugs, which takes into account r&d (to include a portion of failed drugs, but not advertising), manufacturing, and other actual costs with a certain percent of profits - with increases only rising with inflation or by going through the justification process yet again (to account for changes in manufacturing costs, for example). I don't see that happening soon, though.

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