http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/business/martin-shkreli-the-bad-boy-of-pharmaceuticals-hits-back.html?_r=0
Martin Shkreli explained, through a youtube video of three brothers suffering from a rare brain disease, that he raised the price of the Turing drug for AIDS to be able to invent a cure for the disease that only 300 people in the US, including those 3 boys, suffer from. He further went on to say that the process of creating a new drug isn't even about need, it's about consumers buying it. With only 300 people to sell it to , he wouldn't be making much money off of it and other businessmen were beating him up for not raising the price of the old Turing drug more that he did. He felt that raising the price of something lots of people bought would help to cover the "loss" of money attributed to creating this new drug to save 300 people.
If he had said this before, then I think people would maybe understand his actions, but since he waited so long to explain himself, he is now the bad guy who has a lame but heartbreaking excuse.
There has always been the struggle of the minority vs the majority everywhere you look. The plantation owners were in the minority and they still triumphed ultimately over the majority of slaves. The Egyptians enslaved the Hebrews in the same way, and England, a tiny island, has ruined the entire world. Is democracy really a good judge of what the people want if the one-percenters are going to take over regardless?
I kind of understand what Shkreli is trying to do through raising the price of the Turing drug, but I do not agree with it. I do believe that the people suffering from the rare disease deserve medicine, but not at the expense of people who are also suffering. There has to be a better way to raise money for this cause.
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