<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 5:43 AM, Daniel Kalchev <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:daniel@digsys.bg">daniel@digsys.bg</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
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On 15.12.11 01:18, Paul Lehto wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">Some copying, as i see it, is legitimate
(life-saving drugs) while some other copying is not. <br>
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Legitimate?<br>
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How legitimate it would be, if it causes loss of business for a
major US corporation with strong lobby at the Government?<br></div></blockquote><div><br>Fairly legitimate. To claim this as a "loss" is to assume that US patent laws for drugs should have worldwide reach absent an appropriate treaty (i.e. "extraterritorial effect"). Balancing saving lives against extraterritorial effect and additional profit, that's where I come down on the issue. I hope this is OK. ;) <br>
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If you say it is legitimate, would the US permit import of these
life saving drugs from some other country. Why not?</div></blockquote><div><br>As you suggest the pharmaceutical lobby is extremely powerful - in the USA, especially. We hear all the time rhetoric about the efficiency and wonder of worldwide competition, with the glaring exception of drugs. With drugs, even Canadian sources are considered possibly dangerous, when it's hardly different from the USA in this regard. <br>
<br>You suggest further down (and I'm saving my time and others' time by not responding in detail) that the writers of regulations seem like they don't know how to fly the airplane, and so they should not get in the cockpit. As to purely technical matters, you would have a point - except that it is also necessary for technical experts to testify in legislatures and parliaments to inform the process. <br>
<br>You may not be considering the possibility in some cases that the writers of regulations DO know how to fly the airplane, but that they are guided by different stars for navigation than you are. Often times when you get behind the text of a regulation, there is method to the seeming madness. OF COURSE, there's also lots of examples of ignorance and incompetence. But it often occurs that big business will (quietly) get behind a regulation that is burdensome on the whole, because the big business can spread the costs of that regulation over a large operation, while small businesses can not, and are thus hurt more by it. This helps to weaken the competition for the big business. So when you see a "stupid" government regulation, one should not assume that it is always ignorance and not knowing how to fly the airplane that is going on. <br>
<br><b>I guarantee you that pharmaceutical lobbyists know how to fly the airplane of government VERY well indeed.</b> Their flight patterns can easily look crazy to many "common sense" perspectives because we don't have all the information about the special interest agenda and motivations of big pharma companies. So, in looking at a "crazy" regulation you might assume is based on ignorance, you may in fact be looking at a well-crafted piece of legislation, <u>but one that serves a private special interest rather than serving the public interest</u> as it should. <br>
<br>Paul Lehto, J.D.<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000"><div class="im"><br><br></div></div>
</blockquote></div>Paul R Lehto, J.D.<br>P.O. Box 1 <br>Ishpeming, MI 49849 <br><a href="mailto:lehto.paul@gmail.com">lehto.paul@gmail.com</a><br>906-204-4026 (cell)<br><br><br><br><br><br><br>