Scrubbing up: Your comments

In this week's Scrubbing Up Dr Richard Barker says the pharmaceutical industry is there to help us and that it's not all about profit.

As well as generating money and jobs, he believes that the industry's scientists and researchers are on a mission to address human disease and are motivated by the desire to bring cures to mankind.

What do you think? Here are some of the comments you have been sending in to this week's Scrubbing up.

YOUR COMMENTS

I have worked in the UK pharmaceutical industry for 14 years, for several different companies making a range of medicines, from vaccines, through antibiotics to skin products. I can say with my hand on my heart, everyone I have ever met holds dear the fact that what we do will help patients out there. As the article says, not everything is perfect and sometimes things do go wrong but I and my colleagues feel pride at the medicines we have helped to develop.
Lou, Hertfordshire, UK

All models of clinical research, including the non-commercial models, have financial pressures that affect how they conduct their research and development. Whether it is an academic clinical trials unit who, through pressures to meet the requirements of a funding agency, will only conduct research of a certain type, or pharmaceutical companies who have pressures from stakeholders to design a 'lean and efficient' model of research to ultimately produce a profit-making product. I believe that it is necessary to have all of these different types of research for successful healthcare innovation, and that global pharmaceuticals are a very important part of this.

Dr Sarah Evans, Hinckley, Leicestershire

A very touching article. It's amazing sometimes what we don't know how easy it is to make assumptions about our government. I do believe that our biggest problem is a lack of education. I do believe that if we could source this kind of information into our lives a little bit more, then we would have a much more positive and respectable approach to many things that go on today not just in this area.
Jamie Koziura, Hinckley, Leics, England

The trouble with the perception of drugs companies is that they are ultimately businesses out to make a profit. Yes I now have access to prescribed drugs should I require them but not without paying for something that most people feel should be covered by the money that they pay out every month in National Insurance. When people in Africa are dying due to preventable diseases due to the pharmaceutical companies reluctance to supply medicine without profit it's hard to have sympathy.

That said this is not isolated as banking is seen equally badly for putting profit at the forefront of their business. The pharmaceutical industry wants a business but the public want a service.
Ian, Bournemouth

Dr Barker's comparison between the pharmaceutical industry and the Roman Empire is appropriate. Both have given much to mankind, but at the heart of it this is/was not their ultimate intention which fundamentally governs their behaviour. I do not believe any sane individual would resent the pharmaceutical industry for making a profit, but the astounding amount of money and the manner in which it is made has more than raised eyebrows, particularly at the ultimate expense of those most vulnerable. While it is the most vulnerable who need the drugs, this gives the pharmaceutical industry the most emotive weapon to use against their detractors.
Richard Furman, London, UK

As someone who works within the industry, I would agree with all of Dr Barker's comments. However, I wonder how many cures for diseases are sitting in labatory freezers, undeveloped because of the huge cost of clinical trials and satisfying regulatory requirements dwarfing the profits to be made from selling them, possibly to poor third world countries or to people with extremely rare conditions? This has been the frustration of many industry scientists who move into academic research.
Amabel, London, UK

It's a shame that the Pharmaceutical industry is an easy target for the various mass hysteria often brought on by the tabloids.

Jeff, UK

Sadly, people do not go to work motivated by the desire to bring cures to mankind, they go to work to make a profit. Nothing wrong with that, the problem is that the biggest profits come from resolving particular problems, and those problems are generally the ones that beset western or rich countries and individuals. The drugs industries do profit enormously from people being sick and desperate and that is shameful.
Jonathan, London

It should be remembered that all drugs without exception are poisons and have side effects and consequences. Taking them is in effect a controlled poisoning with hopefully a side effect that will assist in the relief of a condition. The report made is utopian, and doesn't consider the serious dangers of some drugs and the dark motives of some of these pharmaceutical companies.

Fred, Birmingham