Merck and Co. and river blindness MANUEL VELASQUEZ, Business Ethics. Concepts and cases 4th edt., Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 1998 River blindness is an agonizing disease that affects some 18 million impoverished people living in remote villages along the banks of rivers in tropical regions of Africa and Latin America. The disease is caused by a tiny parasitic worm that is passed from person to person by the bite of the black fly which breeds in river waters. The tiny worms burrow under a person 's skin where they grow as long as two feet curled up inside ugly round nodules half an inch to an inch in diameter. Inside the nodules the worms reproduce by releasing millions of microscopic offsprings called microfilaria …show more content…
As a result of increasing public concern over rising health costs, government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid had recently put caps on reimbursements for drugs and required cheaper generic drugs in place of the branded name drugs that were Merck 's major source of income. In the face of these worsening conditions in the drug industry, Merck managers were reluctant to undertake expensive projects that showed little economic promise, such as the suggested development of a drug for river blindness. Yet without the drug, millions would be condemned to lives of intense suffering, and partial or total blindness. After many earnest discussions among Vagelos and his management team, they came to the conclusion that the potential human benefits of a drug for river blindness were too significant to ignore. Many of the managers felt, in fact, that because of these human benefits the company was morally obligated to proceed in spite of the costs and the slim chance of economic reward. In late 1980, Vagelos and his fellow managers approved a budget that provided the sizable funding needed to develop a human version of Ivermectin. After seven years of expensive research and numerous clinical trials, Merck succeeded in developing a human version of Ivermectin: A single pill of the new drug taken once a year would eradicate from the human body all traces of the parasite that
The “Cold Feet” dilemma had seven people that would be affected by my decision: The shareholders, the Chief Legal Officer, the Marketing Director, the Division Medical Director, the National Institute of Health, the future purchasers of the drug, and the Journal. The reputation lens and the relationship lens were used to help me make a decision. The relationship lens helped me identify that people involved are entitled to a number of limited rights, people without power must be protected, and the right to a fair process. This led me to choose to have a committee with the appropriate authority and representation
The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most powerful and greedy industries in our country, with a goal to make as large a profit as possible, at the expense of the sick.
Shaw, W.H. (2014). Business ethics: A Textbook with cases, (8th ed.). Boston, MA : Cengage.
Desjardins, J. (2009). An introduction to Business Ethics (3rd Ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher education. pp. 26~41.
Consequentialist Perspective - From the consequentialist view point, there are many who will be profoundly affected if the drug is not produced by Merck & Co. Innumerable people will go blind and thus will greatly affect their quality of life. As stated, the parasites cause unbearable itching, which has led some people to commit suicide. Furthermore, these outcomes will affect more than the infected person. It will consequentially impair the lives of their loved ones. Undoubtedly, people with blindness can live a somewhat normal life, although they will also have to rely on others to provide aid with daily
Lau, T., & Johnson, L. (2013). The legal and ethical environment of business. (1st ed., p. 11.2-11.5).
Woodroof shouted at the FDA during a town hall meeting “People are dying. And y’all up there are afraid that we’re gonna find an alternative without you.” This was Woodroof’s way of saying that the FDA only backs up the pharmaceutical companies because they will give the FDA incentive to put the stamp of approval on their product. “You see the pharma companies pay the FDA to push their product. They don’t want to see my research. I don’t have enough cash in my pocket to make it worth their while” he explained. This is the error the patients see in the American healthcare system, the FDA was hesitant to license new drug therapies and also didn’t want to let patient’s tryout with their own medications. AIDS patients felt like they were denied access to life-saving drugs by an insensitive federal government. Author of the book, HIV and The blood Supply, Lauren B. Leveton suggested that “The evaluation of policy decisions and actions taken over a decade ago is a problematic enterprise.” Even Woodroof’s doctor has concerns about the pharma company that makes AZT when she asks another doctor “Doesn’t it drive you a little bit crazy to see these guys talking about curing the sick while flashing their gold
In Joel Lexchin’s article “Pharmaceutical innovation: Can we live forever? A commentary on Schnittker and Karandinos” he addresses the article made by Schnittker and Karandinos about the progression of pharmaceuticals and whether or not we have advanced enough to significantly increase our life expectancy. Lexchin uses a plethora of rhetoric to persuade the reader into believing his argument, mostly relying upon logos, chiefly facts, to appeal to the logical and sensible side of the readers. His argument is not limited to logos though, as there are faint traces of pathos, the longing to live forever, as well as ethos, society’s needs for further advances, to further convince the reader.
As Marston states, “people need real cures based on real science – not misleading and antiquated animal experiments (Pycroft and Marston 36).”
Even though the pharmaceutical industry had been highly profitable and contributed about 40% OF Ciba-Geigy’s revenues in profit, there were some trends, which were worrying. The government had attempted to reduce a cost of healthcare thus; pressure to lower costs was mounting on industrialized countries. There were restrictions to introduce new products, and price control became stricter while limiting the freedom of doctors to prescribe medications. Patent controls were becoming reduced, and the pharmaceutical industry was becoming increasingly criticized. These trends later made the industry to
The problem to be investigated is the application of business ethics. In the business world, ethics are extremely important. Ethics are prime elements that help a business to grow and to become more productive. It is by applying proper business ethics that a business can operate in a moral or ethical business environment and managed to conduct all activities in a manner that maximizes profits while not compromising all other non-economic concerns(Schwab, 1996). Businesses have over the years failed to nurture business ethics in order to fulfill shareholders' interests and to have a culture that is oriented towards profit maximization and high performance(Jennings, 2012; Sims & Felton, 2006). This has led business to have gray areas in their activities. Gray areas are those situations or problems that do not fit exactly into any ethical analysis. These are the activities which may be represented to be immoral as a result of lying and false representations on the part of the business.
This will be an over view of ethics as it relates to business in our society. Concepts from Philosophy will seek to describe the correlation between actions that are classified as morally right or ethical in our dealings with each other as human beings. Clear and concise examples will be given as well as ways in which to improve upon business ethics.
Another issue is too much power is given to scientists in decision-making of candidate drugs. Also there were inadequacies and lack of communication between marketing and research. Merck’s marketing and research needed to realize that the making of the drug is not only the most important part in increasing sales, but it also included a strong advertising campaign that will satisfy the needs of the customers.
Even though the pharmaceutical industry has made great improvements to human health and quality of life, like creating drugs for the treatment of AIDS, cancer, and other diseases, an increasing tension is growing between the public and the industry. These thoughts are fueled by issues such as drug pricing, affordable health care, and the battle against epidemic diseases in third world countries; social critics wonder whether this multi-billion dollar industry is giving enough back to the community and fulfilling its social responsibility.
The pharmaceutical industry confronts several dilemmas every year. Most of these dilemmas revolve around money or whether or not to sacrifice now for a bigger payoff in the end concerning money and/or lives. Pharmaceutical companies tend to use shortcuts that create ethical problems. Drug companies have spent millions/billions of dollars in research, and they obviously want to see