Martin Shkreli is America’s favorite villain. Hatred for the guy who we see as a face for pharmaceutical greed crosses all boundaries of race and class. It brings together people of every political affiliation. And after all, he stands for everything we want to pretend doesn’t truly exist, right?
As a quick summary, Shkreli became well known (and reviled) first through his ownership of Turing Pharmaceuticals. The company bought a drug, Daraprim, that treats a disease particularly dangerous to HIV patients, and immediately shot the price up from $20/pill to $750/pill. Backlash was immediate and virulent–the idea of using your veritable monopoly on a life-saving drug to take money out of the pockets of the sick and dying was seen as an appalling use of power. Shkreli was later indicted on securities fraud and resigned as C.E.O. of Turing.
I’d followed the story obliquely through the occasional news article, but this week I saw one that caught my eye. This New Yorker article by Kelefa Sanneh was titled, “Everyone Hates Martin Shkreli. Everyone is Missing the Point.” In it, Sanneh makes the argument that while Shkreli is clearly relishing his role as the villain, many of the people criticizing him aren’t much better. Our politicians are perpetuating a system that disadvantages those in poverty when it comes to receiving prompt, effective healthcare. Why do we hate Shkreli instead of the system that allows him to be what he is? I don’t want to gloss over his actions, because he is clearly a criminal and even more dramatically just a nasty person. But he’s not the only thing to hate here.
Instead of just hating Shkreli, we should take his actions as a call to action of our own. What is to be done about pricing in pharmaceuticals? How can we create an ethical system that’s fair and effective both for saving lives now and promoting future development?
As with every issue, it’s more complicated than it seems–and it seems fairly complicated to start with. On the one hand, it may seem fairly straightforward that the first priority should be to the patients. Medication should be available to people who need it, regardless of their ability to pay. But where does insurance step in? Where do taxpayers step in to cover the uninsured?
The other problem comes with incentivizing the research, development, and testing of new drugs. It’s an unbelievably expensive process, and there are no guarantees that a drug will make it to market at every step along the way. So without the possibility of a huge profit margin, Big Pharma will stop developing drugs. And the government can’t step in to cover that difference–government grants are already shrinking and extending to remarkable levels of competition.
I’m not saying I have an answer. But I know the answer isn’t guilting one jerk into changing his drive for profit. This has given us the opportunity to examine our system, and I hope we take the chance.
Anna, I came across the same article and it really made me think twice about my perception of Shkreli. After reading it, I came away with the view of a very imperfect pharmaceutical system and a largely blameless (though conceited, immature, etc. etc.) individual prancing through it, calling attention to its gross imperfections and foibles. Shkreli’s culpability aside, one could certainly argue the view that Shkreli is doing us all a favor by drawing attention to our sorry system. I have to admit, I have been caught up in the media fascination with Shkreli and his each and every new act and outrage. Was this the young genius’s intention from the start—to game the system just to show everyone how gameable it was and how easily he could ride the rules to great profit and public disgust? I’ll defer to the media for needless speculation about Shkreli’s inscrutable motives and deeper intentions. However, I do want to dwell on one of Shkreli’s recent acts. After his congressional hearing in which he gave zero satisfaction to a moralistic and all-too-easily-disturbed Congress, he tweeted something along the lines of, “I can’t believe these are the idiots that run our government.” These words could have come from any one of millions of Americans who have thought the same thing in connection with Shkreli. It seems everyone is complaining vicariously through Shkreli about a rigged system—one that denies health insurance to thousands of working families and allows pharmaceutical CEOs to make obscene profits. But could his tweet just as easily have been directed at us? “I can’t believe these are the people that make up America”? We’re fascinated by his ridiculous attention-grabbing insolence, follow his every move, finally haul him in for questioning and some justice, only to realize that the problems he is flaunting are our own problems—except we don’t actually realize it. We think it’s his problem. He drags the issue directly to the people we elect, the people who have the power to make the changes that are so patently necessary in light of his excesses—and we find that we are upset with both sides. We’re confused and impotent, unable to effect change through our leaders. Shkreli certainly has a knack for exposing just how dysfunctional systems can sometimes be.
Anna,
This is a great take on the situation! I also read this article and was really taken by the viewpoint that the author took. I think what you’re playing into is a sense of accountability and civic duty that we as good citizens and good people must possess and play on. Who are we to keep complaining if we’re not going to do anything about it? I can’t say I have an answer either, but it is really thought provoking to think about how we perpetuate the problems that we often complain about! Hopefully, someone has an answer!
Anjali
Anna,
I love that you wrote on this topic. I’ve been following Turing Pharmaceuticals and Martin Shkreli since the purchase of Daraprim.
You definitely make an interesting point that it’s easy to direct our anger and frustration to one individual when the problem of Big Pharma is much more systemic.
Another thing to note is that Turing Pharmaceuticals has yet to have dropped its price of Daraprim since Shkreli resign as C.E.O.
I hope they will eventually decide to lower the price. Regardless, the pharmaceutical industry has existed with little oversight with respect to how they market and sell the drugs they manufacture, so I believe that greater regulations are required to protect the patients that pharmaceuticals provide medicine for.
It’ll be interesting to see what changes will come as result of this event.