>dthe truth is that if human civilization has existed without a lifesaving treatment for hundreds of thousands of years, delaying it for a couple more to better under its effectiveness is the right decision for the public good.
I don't understand how that's the counterfactual though. Let's say the patents we're talking about are ones that in the early 90s had a 90%+ chance of dying without Lipitor. Not giving them the drug simply to have a control group is just as morally fraught as giving people completely untested drugs that kills them. To suggest otherwise is just status quo bias.
It's clearly a complex issue where you draw the line, but we should be able to have an intelligent conversation as a society about probabilities and tradeoffs.
I don't understand how that's the counterfactual though. Let's say the patents we're talking about are ones that in the early 90s had a 90%+ chance of dying without Lipitor. Not giving them the drug simply to have a control group is just as morally fraught as giving people completely untested drugs that kills them. To suggest otherwise is just status quo bias.
It's clearly a complex issue where you draw the line, but we should be able to have an intelligent conversation as a society about probabilities and tradeoffs.