tl;dw: Johnson and Johnson is using a legal loophole to extend a patent on a life-saving drug, preventing generics from being made. Scientists estimate this will lead to 6 million more people dying of tuberculosis over the next four years, because they cannot afford the high-priced name-brand drug.

  • JoesFrackinJack [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Its actually fucking gnarly as hell that somehow J&J hasn't be more harshly published for all the heinous shit they've done over the years to people, especially babies. They legit had asbestos in their baby powder and continued to sell it after acknowledging that and sold it to third world countries anyways that hadn't banned the talc powder yet.

    They fucking put cyanide in their asprin as well. There is a handful of other shit but it blows me away that they're still talked about like a good brand. Fuck J&J

    • Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      So many companies that have caused like... world war numbers of deaths and disfigurement are still allowed to exist after the fact and it's disgusting. DuPont, Exxon and other oil related business, tobacco companies, asbestos companies, lead, the meat industry, the list goes on.

      • VILenin [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        No, for you see, China is actually worse because they won’t let me own slaves there.

  • GoebbelsDeezNuts [any]
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    edit-2
    1 year ago

    The truly bleak way to look at this is to just ponder how many people have died over the entirety of the original patent.

    Being able to patent medicine is fucking criminal in and of itself end of story.

    Edit: Looks like the original patent for bedaquiline was from 2011. Using the same math but rounding down leaves it at like 11 million deaths. agony-deep

  • THC
    ·
    1 year ago

    How many fucking private holocausts have these companies created?

    • KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      1 year ago

      Ask the tobacco companies. And the fossil fuel companies. And HSBC bank (which was a major player in the Opium Wars of the 1800s).

  • nemmybun [she/her]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Who would've thought that the company that knew and hid info about asbestos in their baby powders for decades so they could dominate the market unimpeded could be so monstrous.

    Fuck Johnson & Johnson

    And fuck John "[Anne Frank] just died of illness like most people" Green too

        • KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]
          hexagon
          ·
          1 year ago

          Honestly, it sounds like John got "canceled" for something his character said in an inner monologue in a fictional book. In my opinion, it's okay to write characters that are immoral and do immoral things. Just because a character says or does something immoral, that doesn't mean the author is a bad person, but that's just my take.

          • Gay_Tomato [they/them, it/its]
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            Just because a character says or does something immoral,that doesn't mean the author is a bad person, but that's just my take.

            As does the fact that at one point, when called out on this disrespect, he said that Anne Frank, “just died of illness like most people"… completely ignoring that she died in a concentration camp, and had been put there because she was Jewish.

            huh

            • KurtVonnegut [comrade/them]
              hexagon
              ·
              1 year ago

              Pretty sure that was taken out of context to generate rage-bait clicks. If you are trying to "concern troll" people into thinking John Green is pro-Holocaust... you're barking up the wrong tree. John Green and his brother Hank have donated millions of dollars to help poor women in Sierra Leone get free access to healthcare. Not to sound glib, but the Green brothers have literally done more mutual aid and direct action than everyone on this website combined... Unless anyone here has also built a free women's hospital un Sub-Saharan Africa.

              • nemmybun [she/her]
                ·
                1 year ago

                Mercury: "Why did you decide to throw in the story of Anne Frank alongside these fictional young women whose lives are also cut short?"

                John Green: "Anne Frank was a pretty good example of a young person who ended up having the kind of heroic arc that Augustus wants—she was remembered and she left this mark that he thinks is valuable—but when he has to confront her death, he has to confront the reality that really she was robbed of the opportunity to live or die for something. She just died of illness like most people. And so I wanted him to go with a sort of expectation of her heroism and be sort of dashed."

                Still shit in full context.

                Nowhere does anyone say he is pro-Holocaust but you don't have to be pro-Holocaust to be an insensitive, anti-Semitic prick.

                Also your last point is exactly the same talking point that liberals use to defend Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, George Soros, etc. and I cannot take that seriously in a leftist space.

  • Fuckass
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    edit-2
    1 year ago

    deleted by creator

  • ssjmarx [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Scientists estimate this will lead to 6 million more people dying of tuberculosis over the next four years

    That's literally an entire Holocaust. It's not like I'm surprised but god damn the only difference between the 20th century fascists and modern western countries is that we have the thinnest veneer of deniability between us and the murders.

      • ssjmarx [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        True 6mil was just Jewish victims, and even 11mil leaves out the millions killed in the "holocaust of bullets" carried out by the German Army on the eastern front..

        • rubpoll [she/her]
          ·
          1 year ago

          If you include Russian casualties on the front, it's closer to 40 million deliberately slaughtered people.

          • GarfieldYaoi [he/him]
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            edit-2
            1 year ago

            wojak-nooo: "But that's IMPOSSIBLE!!! 40 million in 12 years!? But internet told me fascism is wholesome chungus and the Soviets were the bad guys for killing nazis!"

            • Dr_Gabriel_Aby [none/use name]
              ·
              1 year ago

              In the Soviet Union, if you enabled and helped the Nazis kill 50 million people, you got in trouble and sent to prison! Anne Applebaum told me all about it.

    • Tachanka [comrade/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      That's literally an entire Holocaust. It's not like I'm surprised but god damn the only difference between the 20th century fascists and modern western countries is that we have the thinnest veneer of deniability between us and the murders.

      Engels figured out this little trick in 1845

      Show

      • ComradeLove [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Reminded that Michael Moore made this argument in some book, how both crack cocaine and the automobile companies destroyed lives in Detroit, but only one was illegal. He used to be pretty left.

  • Llituro [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    jesus fucking christ, imagine being a state that allows people to die of tuberculosis for the sake of capitalism in the year of our lord 2023. what's the fucking point of living in the most advanced "civilization" to ever exist on earth if they dumb fucking capitalists are allowed to let people die of goddamn tuberculosis regardless.

  • mazdak
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    edit-2
    1 year ago

    deleted by creator

    • Heifer [none/use name]
      ·
      1 year ago

      From what I read the patented isomer of ketamine that costs $1000’s is less effective on treatment resistant depression than regular ol racemic ketamine Wonder why there isn’t a push for a classic well established medicine thonk

  • UlyssesT
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    edit-2
    21 days ago

    deleted by creator

  • adultswim_antifa [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    We all know liberals love to :vote: but they also really love letter writing campaigns. It's like voting but they can do it any time they need to. Please sir, I beseech you to listen to your conscience instead of your wallet for once. That's all it takes in these rare moments when evil is triumphing over good.

  • Othello
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    edit-2
    1 month ago

    deleted by creator

  • YearOfTheCommieDesktop [they/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I would contest that this is a good post. But it's as close to one as you will get from John Green, so the bad publicity for J&J is nice to see.

  • UnicodeHamSic [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I know I am bad for feeling it but it is hilarious to em that as soon as one of them gets sick and has to interact with thr medical system here in the US they are radicalized.

  • PZK [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I work with TB on a daily basis. TB is heavily tied to material conditions. I have seen enough signs that I think it's going to blow up in the US in the coming decades. We are gutting public health and instead subsidizing companies like this to find better drugs. This will end up causing it to be something exclusively benefiting the rich, and not treating TB like the socially spread disease it is.