John Edwards is getting on my nerves

I really want to like John Edwards. Not that I can vote in the Presidential Election, what with me being an unrepentant Brit, but I do like to have someone to root for in an election. And I'd like to root for John Edwards. But he's really getting on my nerves. It's not the hair, although it's definitely better than mine. It's the way he talks about pharmaceutical companies.

I've heard him do it several times -- here's one quote: "Big insurance and pharmaceutical companies are writing our health care policies to ensure their own profits, not their customers' well being, while 45 million Americans go without health insurance and premiums skyrocket for everyone."

By this (I think) he means that pharma company lobbyists have undue influence in Washington, thereby contributing to the mess of the US healthcare system. Those poor Senators and Congress members are of course unable to resist the wiles of these evil lobbyists.

But what really bugs me is when he lumps together pharmaceutical companies, oil companies and tobacco companies in his litany of evil corporations. Why not throw in liquor companies and casinos while you're at it, John? Not to mention those big food corporations that market sugar disguised as cereal to our kids.

Now, I am of course completely biased on this topic. I work for a big pharma company. I wouldn't work for a tobacco company, a liquor company, or a sugar cereal company. Here's what we do that is so evil. We invent, develop, manufacture and market medicines that help sick people get better. For this work we have the audacity to expect that our inventions will be covered by a reasonable patent life. We also expect people to pay money for our products It takes about ten years (or longer) for us to bring a new product to market, and it costs nearly a billion dollars. (Though I'm not a finance expert, I can't figure out how you can spend a billion dollars to bring a drug to market and then give it away, or sell it for "generic" prices.)

In the current environment, our products are expected to be very effective, very innovative, and safer than liquor, cigarettes, automobiles, or sugared cereal. If they're not, trial lawyers like John Edwards will sue the pants off us.

John Edwards has proposed that pharmaceutical companies not be allowed to patent their products. Instead he would like to establish a "blue-ribbon panel" that would identify areas of unmet medical need and award prizes to companies that develop drugs to meet those needs. Who would fund those prizes? Would they at least cover the development of the drugs? That's crazy talk, man. This business is hard enough.

I know a lot of people who work for pharmaceutical companies. Almost all of them are in the business because they want to help patients -- patients like Elizabeth Edwards. Are there some who are in just for money? Sure there are. Are there better ways out there to ensure that pharma continues to meet unmet medical need and develop innovative new products? You bet, there have to be, or we'll all be out of business before long.

Pharma employees are young and old, healthy and sick, executives and blue collar workers, Democrats, Republicans, Americans and British, and Swiss , etc, etc.

But we are not evil.