I'm confused. Patents are the cause of a decrease in effectiveness of antibiotics?
I was in Mexico last week and could buy many types of antibiotics over-the-counter without a prescription, and the prices all seemed below what you'd see for comparable generic drugs in the US. Obviously they're not even interested in medical supervision when distributing antibiotics (and a bunch of other drugs). My assumption is that they're even less interested in who owns what patent.
Drug companies pushing doctors to use their products seems like a drop in the bucket compared with policies that make antibiotics cheaply and easily available without supervision from those trained in medicine.
That said, I'm opposed to abusing the patent system by granting longer patents. Protect those willing to create new and useful drugs so they can make a profit... but keep them on their toes by not letting the rest on their laurels forever while they milk some patent dry.
I was in Mexico last week and could buy many types of antibiotics over-the-counter without a prescription, and the prices all seemed below what you'd see for comparable generic drugs in the US. Obviously they're not even interested in medical supervision when distributing antibiotics (and a bunch of other drugs). My assumption is that they're even less interested in who owns what patent.
Drug companies pushing doctors to use their products seems like a drop in the bucket compared with policies that make antibiotics cheaply and easily available without supervision from those trained in medicine.
That said, I'm opposed to abusing the patent system by granting longer patents. Protect those willing to create new and useful drugs so they can make a profit... but keep them on their toes by not letting the rest on their laurels forever while they milk some patent dry.