“Under the market system, there is demand for a product if a lot of people want it - but that demand counts for nothing if those people have no money. If they lack money, their demand essentially doesn't exist…This explains why the drug industry is not investing money to develop a cure for a disease known as sleeping sickness, which leaves its victims in a coma. The disease…killed 66,000 people last year and threatens to infect 60 million more - but the only people who are afflicted by it are poverty-stricken Africans with no clout in the marketplace. Interestingly, there is a drug called eflornithine that is effective in lifting victims out of their comas. But drug companies stopped producing eflornithine in 1995 because it was no longer profitable to continue. The drug was still desperately needed, but only by people without money. So, following modern market practices, these people were simply left in a coma.”

— Linda McQuaig

All You Can Eat: Greed, Lust and the New Capitalism (2001)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Under the market system, there is demand for a product if a lot of people want it - but that demand counts for nothing …" by Linda McQuaig?

Linda McQuaig 21

journalist and author 1951

Related quotes

“This leads to the paradox, that because the disease is only in the poor countries, there is not much investment. For example, there is more money put into baldness drugs, than are put into malaria. Now, baldness, it is a terrible thing [audience laughter] and rich men are afflicted, so that is why that priority is set.”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Video may be viewed here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppDWD3VwxVg.
TED, February (2009)

“So much money is wasted in the drug war. I've had two congressman, Orange County congressman, tell me that there are lots of people in Washington who now believe that the drug war is not winnable but that it is imminently fundable… Where President Eisenhower once talked about the Military-Industrial Complex, we now have the Prison-Industrial Complex. It's the same thing, the same disease.”

James P. Gray (1945) American judge

“Hey, Wheres the Stoners, Druids and Ferret-Lovers?” O.C. Weekly (Feb. 24, 2004) https://ocweekly.com/hey-wheres-the-stoners-druids-and-ferret-lovers-6381081/