by Alicia M Prater PhD

Created on: January 23, 2008

The needs of the public health should usurp profit motivation. Pharmaceutical companies are allowed to make money off of medical advances as a way of insuring their upfront funding for drug and treatment developments. However, the greater good and the needs of public health should be an exception to this arrangement.

The pharmaceutical companies are not the only endeavors allowed to profit from medicine. In 1980, the United States congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act, a piece of legislation allowing for federally funded advancements to be patented and for the researchers responsible to be the beneficiaries of monetary gains from the discovery. The federal government signed away their rights to the institutions and research departments because of the concept of profit motivation, the idea that researchers and companies would be more productive if they have a personal financial incentive. Under the Bayh-Dole Act, researchers must decide if they will retain rights. For pharmaceutical companies, this would be unheard of. They are businesses and profit motivation is the thread that holds them together. For federally funded programs the government also retains "march-in rights". The government can take back their rights when necessary.

The World Health Organization lists nearly 30 manufacturers of influenza vaccine, only three of which are in the United States and half are based in Asia, mainly China. The patents are held by major companies that most likely did not receive federal funding, but most are international companies that have different standards for vaccine production than the U.S. Today's global economy and the extent of global traveling require a universal standard in public health and disease prevention. With the spreading fear of bird flu becoming the next human pandemic and the susceptibility of the chronically ill, including HIV patients, diabetics, and heart disease patients, as well as children in highly sanitized households and the elderly, it is necessary to have the influenza vaccine available to those who need or want it.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, nearly 20,000 children under the age of 5 are hospitalized for influenza and approximately 36,000 people die from the flu each year. Though not everyone is in need of vaccination it is important to public health to have it available in appropriate numbers to vaccinate everyone in the case of an emerging health risk. The past couple of years have seen shortages in the vaccine supply, based on predictions of required vaccinations by high-risk groups, due to suppliers being shut down and the time required to prepare the vaccine. It is estimated that it takes 6 months to prepare the vaccine, which is still done in poultry eggs, and there are those who can not receive it due to allergies to the preparation process. Making the patents available for others to research methods of preparation as well as making larger volumes of vaccine would make for a more secure public health position should a pandemic arise.

Despite being the right thing to do, the good faith measure by the pharmaceutical companies would benefit medical science, presenting a greater range of minds the ability to enhance the current influenza vaccines. The companies would also benefit by enhancing their images with such a positive public relations decision. The world would benefit from a deviation away from profit motivation in the cases of public health necessity.

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