I was against him initially, much like most of the general public. Even when I started becoming more conservative, I still had a bad impression of Martin because of how heavily he was vilified. After doing some research, that all changed. My new position --- what he did was not only legal, but in fact, a very ethical and beneficial thing for society.
Both Bernie and Hillary disavowed him and most likely won’t change their minds. Donald blasted him, saying he’s a “spoiled brat.” During the Apple/San Bernardino issue, Donald was wrong to boycott them, but seemed to have eased up on it. Eventually, Martin endorsed Donald and they seemed to have patched things up. It’s impossible to be informed about every facet of life, so we have to allow people to take incorrect stances at times, but try to be open minded and have a conversation whenever these disagreements arise.
The facts
- Toxoplasmosis is a common food-borne disease that most negatively afflicts people with weakened immune systems (such as HIV, cancer, transplant patients etc).
- 10-30% of the United States population is infected with toxoplasma gondii, however most individuals can fight off the infection naturally. Typically only those who don’t have a strong immune system can’t.
- Owning ≥ 3 kittens and exposure to certain raw or undercooked meats/dairies associated with increased risk of Toxoplasma gondii infection in United States
- Toxoplasmosis Encephalitis (TE) - Severe complication of the infection that causes inflammation of the brain.
- Daraprim is a drug approved in 1953 to treat toxoplasmosis. It cures toxoplasmosis with a set number of pills.
- Side effects that may occur with Daraprim include megaloblastic anemia, leukopenia, thrombocytopenia, pancytopenia, hematuria, allergic reactions, tongue changes, blood in the urine, heart rhythm disorders, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, insomnia, headache, lightheadedness, or dry mouth.
- Martin Shkreli is an American entrepreneur and pharmaceutical executive. He is co-founder of the hedge fund MSMB Capital Management, co-founder and former chief executive officer (CEO) of the biotechnology firm Retrophin, and founder and former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals.
- 2,000 people need Daraprim
- Daraprim was raised from $13.50 to $750 per pill by Turing Pharmaceuticals.
- 60%-70% of Daraprim given away for free by Turing Pharmaceuticals via promotions.
Why did he raise the price of Daraprim?
There has not been new progress with fighting toxoplasmosis since it was released. To gain interest with investors, capital is needed to start research and development (R&D). New findings can help prevent current side effects (listed above) of treating toxoplasmosis. This is how our system works (the most innovative and efficient in the world) to help people live longer and not suffer.
Why bother?
Some argue that Daraprim doesn’t need to be updated because it has been helping people since the 1950’s. Like most anti-infective agents, mutations are possible/likely and eventually won't work, so we must constantly be trying to find newer and better ways of fighting of illnesses. If we don’t do this, our futures will be riddled with panic and rushing to find antidotes for things we could have figured out a long time ago. Imagine a slightly out of control fireplace, eventually it’s going to engulf your whole house when you could have taken precautions to stop the fire from having a chance to spread.
The specific research that Martin is focussing on could be a groundbreaking thing for cancer treatments and other serious diseases. Our current and most common methods of treating cancer are “chemical”, which target your whole body, basically destroying everything in order to fight off the cancer. Daraprim works like this too, and if Martin can figure out how to target toxoplasmosis without seriously affecting other parts of your body, this can revolutionize therapies for other disease states.
How does the price increase affect people who need Daraprim?
2,000 people who were affected had to do some minor changes in their insurance. Turning offered special promotions of 1 cent or free for those who could not afford the drug. No one that needs Daraprim has died or had complications because they could not get the drug.
Some may claim that if the media backlash didn’t occur, Turning would not have offered to give the drug away for free. This becomes a case of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” No matter what you do after such a media backlash, there’s no way to recover because you already have a bad reputation with the public. At this point, why would any company want to do actual good things if the people don’t care to change their minds? In a free market, businesses have to provide a good product at a good price, but are not necessarily entitled to be charitable. It’s hard to speculate what would’ve happened if there was no backlash (would they have given it away regardless?), which is why it comes down to --- is Martin a bad person and only does what benefits him?
Is Martin a bad person?
Short Bio - Raised by immigrant parents who worked as janitors in Brooklyn. Dropped out of high school. Developed an interest in chemistry when a family member suffered from treatment-resistant depression.
There’s no question that he’s flamboyant and flaunts his wealth, which upsets a lot of people. It seems as though there is an unspoken rule among the wealthy to steer away from the public light, because when you show any signs of being proud of what you’ve done in life and the wealth you accumulated, the world starts hating you. The only way you can ‘redeem’ yourself is to give away most of your wealth, but it’s not even a guarantee to fix anything because your public image has already been scarred. Bill Gates had this problem in the 90s, and Martin looked up to him in those years.
Wu Tang Album - An album titled “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” was purchased by Martin for $2M after being on auction for a while without interest. Many fans of the rap group were infuriated because he purchased it. Based on Martin’s videos, he’s not interested in WT, but decided to buy the album anyway. In an interview with Milo, Martin explain that there’s not much of a difference between someone who has $100M and someone who has $1B. People who are this wealthy are always at the process of giving their money away, but the public doesn’t want to give them the benefit of doubt because they don’t do it fast enough. It’s clear that Martin spends his money on frivolous things, and that is a good thing. When large sums of money are spent on the market, it benefits all of us because newer and better products will be created from it. Wu Tang will have the capital to make more albums which benefits the fans.
Youtube Channel - Martin creates free educational videos about finance and chemistry. It’s safe to say that he’s well educated and knows a lot about his field so the content he provides is valuable. Teaching people who want to learn and doing it for free is one of the most generous things you can do in life. (he doesn’t accept donations)
Looking at his news interviews, you get a sense that he might have had some forms of social problems in the past. It’s clear that he’s trying to smile and appear happy, but it comes across as ‘fake’. People get put off by this and start thinking he’s evil just because of the way he looks.
Born in poverty, dropped out of high school to pursue life saving medicine, spends money on R&D, spends money on frivolous things, has no intentions of hoarding, and provides educational content for free. These are not the signs of someone who has ill intent for this world.
So why do people hate him?
The main culprit is media that smeared Martin as an “evil vulture capitalist who raised the price of an AIDS/cancer curing drug by 5000%”. These headlines draw a lot of eyeballs to the screen, so obviously all media organizations are going to dog pile on this story. Nothing wrong with shedding light on actual bad deeds that people do, but in this case it was a misguided atrocity. They did not have a conversation with Martin, he was already guilty because of the few pieces of ‘evidence’ they gathered.
Virtue signaling from the general public also played a big role. People no longer want to do actual good in the world, they just want to appear like they’re good people. Slapping a graphic on your facebook avatar and saying you support ‘this cause’ only helps yourself and gets your friends to call you a good person even when you didn’t do anything. This kind of simplistic thinking is why Martin appears like the bad guy. People only look at his appearance and demeanor, instead of his actions and motives. “I have a bad feeling about him, therefore he must have ill intent.”
This is not to say that there aren’t problems with the pharmaceuticals. Martin was just not an example of the corruption that does take place. You might have an argument that this has shed some light on a potential problem, but is that a good reason to hate a person who was nothing more than a scapegoat?
Articles
Medical Sources
Videos
If some details are incorrect, please cite a source that goes against what I wrote and I will make corrections. Any ethical/philosophical points I made do not need sources as a rebuttal, just write counterpoints of where you disagree.
No comments:
Post a Comment