[Marxism] score one for the ivory drug tower

[Les Schaffer]

Nature 430, 715 (12 August 2004); doi:10.1038/430715b

Petition fails to reverse massive price rise for AIDS drug

ERIKA CHECK

National Institutes of Health refuses to take action over treatment costs

[WASHINGTON] The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has declined to 
impose a price cut on a key AIDS medicine.

The refusal to accede to complaints about drug costs, made after drug 
firm Abbott Laboratories hiked the price of one of its AIDS medications 
by more than 400%, won praise from research universities.

"Pharmaceutical pricing is an issue, but marching in on a company's 
patent is not the appropriate way to deal with it," says Patrick White, 
director of federal relations at the Association of American 
Universities in Washington. The association feared that NIH intervention 
would deter companies from commercializing scientific findings.

full: 
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v430/n7001/full/430715b_fs.html