The situation is that there is a new drug that is helping people without hurting anyone, so they write an article about how it is increasing ‘health disparities.’
Isn’t “solving for the equilibrium” a big thing in this community? That’s what articles like this do—count not only first order effects, but also what those lead to.
Specifically—people with money and resources gobbling up all the available “miracle” drug, making people with less resources unable to get one even for the established medical use. So yeah, I really don’t see a problem with the article title (specifically title, hadn’t read the content!), it’s stating the facts. Finding new usage for limited resource makes poor people access to it even worse than before.
Of course, “let’s make less miracle drugs” isn’t a solution, solution is to make more of them, so that everyone who need one can get one. Finding new cures isn’t the problem, terrible distribution pipelines is.
That those with a lot of money live better than those with less money is what gives money value in the first place. And in this particular scenario the worst off aren’t counterfactually harmed and in fact have quite a lot to gain in the medium term.
On the object level, I know someone who was able to get GLP-1 agonists for much cheaper by buying something meant for animal use off a sketchy website. Compounding pharmacies are also producing semaglutide for cheaper.
Isn’t “solving for the equilibrium” a big thing in this community? That’s what articles like this do—count not only first order effects, but also what those lead to.
Specifically—people with money and resources gobbling up all the available “miracle” drug, making people with less resources unable to get one even for the established medical use. So yeah, I really don’t see a problem with the article title (specifically title, hadn’t read the content!), it’s stating the facts. Finding new usage for limited resource makes poor people access to it even worse than before.
Of course, “let’s make less miracle drugs” isn’t a solution, solution is to make more of them, so that everyone who need one can get one. Finding new cures isn’t the problem, terrible distribution pipelines is.
That those with a lot of money live better than those with less money is what gives money value in the first place. And in this particular scenario the worst off aren’t counterfactually harmed and in fact have quite a lot to gain in the medium term.
On the object level, I know someone who was able to get GLP-1 agonists for much cheaper by buying something meant for animal use off a sketchy website. Compounding pharmacies are also producing semaglutide for cheaper.