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government has an obligation to protect (and promote) the interests of the nation's citizens. Yet do the federal government's actions denote behavior that is socially responsible when both members of the Senate and House of Representatives are eager to accept millions of dollars offered to them through lobbyists in the employ of the pharmaceutical companies? Or consider, that those lobbyists have been successful in influencing the actions of our government officials; essentially, benefitting the industry over the American people.

Ismail reports that through lobbying, the pharmaceutical industry has been successful in fending "off measures aimed at containing prices, like allowing importation of medicines from countries that cap prescription drug prices". They have also lobbied the government for provisions stating that "government programs like Medicare are barred from negotiating with companies for lower prices" (Ismail). Actions which harm the American people through increased prescription drug costs and taxpayer dollars which go to prescription drug costs through programs like Medicare.

The government is clearly not acting in a socially responsible manner either. This can clearly be seen in laws that are being passed to benefit the pharmaceutical industry to the detriment of the American people. And it would appear that the sole motive for which this is occurring is greed politicians, who are being enticed by the lobbyist's money and are not able to see past their own desire for more money even when it means the American people will suffer in the end.

Summing It All Up

Clearly, it would appear that the actions of the pharmaceutical industry are completely unethical. It does not appear to matter which way you flip the coin, it still turns up the same results. Our analysis would also indicate that from certain points of view, the federal government is equally unethical though that may be a little harder to show.

References

Ismail, M. Asif. "Drug Lobby Second to None." 7 July 2005. publicintegrity.org. 30 October 2008 <http://projects.publicinte grity.org/rx/report.aspx?aid=7 23>.

Mirza, Naureen. "Treating Rare Diseases: The Orphan Drug Act." n.d.

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