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Case 6.4 Drug Dilemmas Essay

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Case 6.4: Drug Dilemmas The cost of new medical drugs seems to be accepted by many people who use them. These pharmaceutical companies increase their profits more and more each year because many people assume that it does cost a lot of money for research and development. Where in reality, they are only spending about 15% of their profit margins on research and development alone. A huge percentage of these drugs are actually tested in other countries where people are more willing to do trials with these drugs because they cannot afford them. Not only are there more people who are more willing to try them, but also there is less regulation and oversight when it comes to testing. Conducting these clinical trials overseas not only saves …show more content…

According to the first CI, it is morally wrong to sell these medical drugs at such a high cost, especially when it does not cost relatively as much to create the drug. Looking at the act universally, we can determine that if everyone had a product that they placed on the market and charged a tremendously greater amount than the cost to produce the product/service, then our economy would most likely collapse. There is no real necessary need to make such a huge profit margin. Also, considering Kant's belief that every change has a reason and we may understand there is no reason for these companies to charge such a high price. Especially because most of today's society falls under the middle to lower class and only a small group of wealthy individuals will be likely to survive. Therefore, the maxim cannot be willed as universally acceptable and will be considered as an immoral act. Another question we come across in this case is "Should these pharmaceutical companies have a moral obligation to make the drugs available to the people who they performed clinical trials on?". Again we clearly should see that the pharmaceutical companies should allow the access of these drugs to the people that are being used to test their products. There is a huge risk for these people who are taking a new drug, not knowing exactly what the outcome can be and are merely treated as guinea pigs for the

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