Support AlterNet
Do you value the information you're getting from AlterNet? Please show your support with a tax-deductible donation.
Feedback
Tell us how we're doing.
Anthrax, Cipro and Property Privileges -- Not Rights
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
Health Care: It's Time for a Major Overhaul
Alexander Zaitchik
Democracy and Elections:
More Unfinished 2008 Election Business: Verifiable Vote Counts
Steven Rosenfeld
DrugReporter:
California Supreme Court Rules Unanimously Against Compassionate Care
Tamar Todd
Election 2008:
5 Great Progressive Columnists' Advice and Ideas on the Coming Obama Era
Environment:
Major Green Groups Offer Plan to Obama
Kate Sheppard
ForeignPolicy:
Hillary Clinton's Disdain for International Law -- Change We Can Believe In?
Stephen Zunes
Health and Wellness:
Obama's Plan to End the HIV/AIDS Crisis
Kaytee Riek
Hurricane Katrina:
From the Bayou to Baghdad: Mission Not Accomplished
Amy Goodman
Immigration:
Immigration Pathway Still Looks Uphill
Kirk Nielsen
Media and Technology:
Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives
Doron Taussig
Movie Mix:
Love Bites: What Sexy Vampires Tell Us About Our Culture
Sarah Seltzer
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
Economic Downturn Hits Women the Hardest
Brittany Schell
Rights and Liberties:
Obama: Close, Don't Repackage, Guantánamo
Michael Ratner, Jules Lobel
Sex and Relationships:
Virtual Sex: How Online Games Changed Our Culture
Damon Brown
War on Iraq:
Why Robert Gates is a Terrible Pick
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Water:
Water Neutral: Is the Latest Eco-Term Just Corporate Hype?
Jeff Conant
It's intriguing how incidents can open windows into the public psyche, illuminating ideas that we as a collective hold, without being aware we're holding them.
The post-9/11 brouhaha over the Cipro patent is one such incident. Cipro is, of course, the anthrax treatment made by the German pharmaceutical company Bayer, which everyone and their great uncle wanted to stockpile in those scary days. With the anthrax scare escalating, the question of the hour was whether Bayer could make enough Cipro fast enough, and if not, whether the government should override Bayer's patent and order the stuff from generic drug makers. Canada announced it was doing so in mid-October. Senate minority leader Trent Lott said Congress ought to debate stripping Bayer of its patent. And the White House actually threatened to do so unless Bayer slashed its price -- which it did on Oct. 24.
So the immediate issue was resolved. But we are left with the very interesting notion -- hitherto dormant in the public mind -- that government can override patents to protect public health. Or to phrase it more powerfully: Property rights are subordinate to the public good.
Now, many will find this notion immediately compelling. It is a principle I would love to see added to the Great Seal on the dollar bill: "Novus Ordo Seclorum," and above it, "Property Rights are Subordinate to the Public Good." (Now that really would lead to a "new order of the ages"). We could print it on a banner and hang it on the front of the White House -- where even conservative Republicans seem to be embracing the idea, without a great deal of angst.
We should exult that this notion is tripping off the tongue of folks who, months earlier, were lecturing about the sanctity of property rights in overseas trade. These are the same folks who said South Africa may in no circumstance override pharmaceutical patents to fight its AIDS crisis. It's shameful that tens of thousands of South Africans dying of AIDS do not constitute the same threat to the public good as a handful of Americans contracting anthrax. But the more encouraging point is that, even if it took a threat close to home to bring out the principle, the principle nonetheless has emerged. Conservatives' own actions have illumined this idea held deep in the public psyche: Property rights are subordinate to the public good.
Future debate need no longer argue whether this principle is valid, but only at what point it kicks in. There are things we as a collective know intuitively: first, that property rights are not unassailable rights -- like the right to vote -- but rather privileges granted by government which can be withdrawn by government. Second, there is a higher law than that of property rights, and it is the law of the public good.
If patents are subordinate to this higher law, so too are corporations -- for they are simply another form of legally invented property. Here we see a related principle emerging today, that corporations must not harm the public good. This idea runs through anti-tobacco lawsuits, labor laws, environmental laws, and health and safety laws.
Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »
| More News and Analysis: | ||
|
Immigration Pathway Still Looks Uphill Immigration: Even with Democrats controlling Congress, immigration reform faces tough going. By Kirk Nielsen, Miller-McCune.com. December 1, 2008. |
Major Green Groups Offer Plan to Obama Environment: How should Obama act on the environment? A report by 29 major enviro groups gave Obama a list of actions and policies. By Kate Sheppard, Grist.org. December 1, 2008. |
Obama's Plan to End the HIV/AIDS Crisis Health and Wellness: Obama promises to leave behind ideology-driven debates over how to spend money, and instead put common sense and science first. By Kaytee Riek, RH Reality Check. December 1, 2008. |