Vol , Issue
Date of Publication: July 01, 2004
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20529/IJME.2004.040
Views
, PDF Downloads:
Research Articles
Why life-saving drugs should be public goods
Abstract:
Omar Swartz presents a number of good arguments in favour of treating the formulae for making human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other life-saving drugs as public goods rather than private property: ideas can be shared without being used up; the most effective use of blueprints for life-saving medicine is to provide drugs to sick people; finally, it is clearly unreasonable if 'a person who owns something...can dispose of (or control access to) that [thing]...without regard for others.'
Copyright and license
©Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 2016: Open Access and Distributed under the Creative Commons license ( CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits only non-commercial and non-modified sharing in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.