Newsweek and New Yorker articles...

[Guest guest]

Hello:

Anyone who wants to understand why iodine isn't used more widely, or who has skeptical friends or family who don't believe that iodine can be a "real" drug since it doesn't require a prescription, or who think that pharmacological companies would be researching and selling iodine if it were effective (etc.), there's an article in Newsweek this week that might help.

It's the cover story, "Desperately Seeking Cures," and it's depressing. One scientist who can cure osteoporosis can't get a patent for a molecule he discovered, and "without patent protection, no company will develop [his molecule] for people, even in Europe or Japan. For a multinational drug company to go forward, it needs patent protection..." And

just in terms of why academics and drug companies don't collaborate: "Under the current system they cannot and will not collaborate for fear that it will jeopardize funding, patent protection, and publication." The issue of patenting a drug runs throughout, and because iodine and Lugol's can't be patented they are essentially invisible to drug companies. Even if the INCREDIBLY expensive double-blind studies WERE carried out to show that iodine cures X, Y, and Z, no drug company would be interested because they couldn't corner the market. And drug companies are where many doctors get their information about treating disease, unfortunately.

The New Yorker article is about "the difficulties of making a cancer drug," and it too implies that, without a major drug company on board, no drug will ever be promoted and marketed. And no major drug company will take on a drug that can't be patented.

Many here have said all of this already, but sometimes eejits need "approved" sources :-).

Thanks for listening,

Adrienne in Texas