Reply #8: I'd certainly like to see poorer coutries get together and buy in bulk. [View All]

[applegrove]

I think they do that. What gets me is when an american bio-rice company tries to patent basmati (which has been used for free by people for thousands of years). Or try and come up with a "new rice" which people will have to buy every year because it does not "make seeds" for the next year.

Indian activists fought both these. But it is pretty creepy when corporations spend much on coming up with ways to charge people for what was free. Or if they come up with drugs (on issues that have already been solved). All the while the "super-bugs" morph (sometimes due to new antibiotics being fed to farm animals so they can live in packed into a factory without dying - instead of on a farm).

I really think that with "monopolies given to drug companies" that the illnesses that really need solving should be given the greater monopoly - and issues that have been solved be given a lesser monopoly (ie - fewer years).

I don't see what else can be done!