With all the bad moves and trips that the Pharmaceutical Industry has made over these years and appears to still be making – though more gingerly – it is very easy for critics and observers to proclaim that Industry’s problems came from moving the focus away from the patients.
“It’s the Patients, Stupid!” (my apologies to those who abominate the “…stupid!” cliche)
It’s NOT “…the Patients, Stupid.” Bad behavior toward patients do land you in some PR hot water, and if severe enough, in jail or the poorhouse.
Is it the greed? Chastising avaricious pharma executives for directing their industry to today’s court room melodrama (I can just hear it now – “… Like Lawyers Through the Courthouse, These Are the Days of PharmaCo’s Lives…“) is a fraction of the story. Don’t just look at the money, follow the money. Pick up the dollar with the string attached and go to where the string first began.
In today’s society where almost everything can happen by proxy, greed can too. So the question is, who is holding the string attached to the dollar that executives with a compromised ethical system want so much?
Probably not the patients.