Second Precept & Generic Drugs

Buddhist ethical conduct including the Five Precepts (Pañcasikkhāpada), and Eightfold Ethical Conduct (Aṭṭhasīla).
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Modus.Ponens
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Re: Second Precept & Generic Drugs

Post by Modus.Ponens »

No_Mind wrote:
mikenz66 wrote:
This is getting somewhat off topic,

:anjali:
Mike
Yes off topic Mike, but will have been a great conversation. Good to hear you are working solely with Linux. Perhaps it is because of your confidence due to lot of practice with Linux and Unix. :thumbsup:

Modus.Ponens wrote:Jesus!

I thought this was a serious question without an agenda. I was really interested in the medication question, and ready to answer it, until the piracy "equivalency" came into place.

Ask a cancer patient the following: "what is most important for you a medication to save his life, or windows 7?"

:shrug:
Disregard the piracy equivalency part. Please share your opinion on what was asked other than that.

This thread is a serious question without an agenda.

Reply to the generic drug part which was the actual question. Do you break second precept by consuming unlicensed generic drugs?

:anjali:
Ok.

Technicaly, yes. Moraly, no.

If you go just by the letter of the rule against stealing, this is in fact stealing. But if you face the precepts stirctly as legal "documents" you will face ridiculous contradictions.
For example, if there was a murderer ready to murder 2 people and you had a clear and completely safe way to steal his weapon, wouldn't you steal it?

A real case of corporate thievery is Monsanto. They are patenting seeds that are not theirs to begin with. And now they're lobying (at least european) governments so that only a restricted number of seeds can be used in agriculture. Not to mention what they do in court to the farmers who, by no fault of their own, get their corn seeds fertilised by GM corn, and try to use those seeds for their next year crop.

In the case of pharmaceutical industry the problem is delicate. On one hand 90% of the research relevant to make a specific pill is done by universities. The pharmaceutical companies spend some money on research but not even comparable to the money they claim they spend. AFAIK, no exaustive report of what was spent is presented _ far from it. So they lie to government, patent and health authorities on how much they spent to do the research. They end up with a price for their product that is extremely inflated. That is lying to get money, aka, stealing.

On the other hand, there must be some financial incentive for original research to be done so that the fundamental research done in universities gets application to specific cases.

In my opinion, as long as these companies have a predatory behaviour, I don't find it wrong for people to save their lives and good health by using patented medicine. After all, if medical research was like a company, the pharmaceutical companies would only have 10% of the shares. Yet, they are the ones deciding how much a person's life is worth.
'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' - Jhana Sutta
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Modus.Ponens
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Re: Second Precept & Generic Drugs

Post by Modus.Ponens »

I forgot to say something important.

Even though I don't find it wrong, I wouldn't advise to do it unless it's an emergency. Online pharmacies are not trustworthy. Plus, it is likely that you wouldn't have medical assistance from your doctor.
'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' - Jhana Sutta
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