Kamtekar, Rachana2019-09-252019-09-252011-03-072004-070975-5691http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12424/176666Omar Swartz (1) presents a number of good arguments in favour of treating the formulae for making human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other life-saving drugs as public goods rather than private property: ideas can be shared without being used up; the most effective use of blueprints for life-saving medicine is to provide drugs to sick people; finally, it is clearly unreasonable if 'a person who owns something...can dispose of (or control access to) that [thing]...without regard for others.' But where, in all of these considerations do we find the claims of those who have devoted their labour, time and resources to the research that goes into developing medicines? Although ideas, once we have them, can be shared without being used up, it can take a lot of money to come up with those ideas in the first place. One estimate (probably on the high end) by the US government is that it takes US$ 500 million to develop a new drug-this presumably factors into the costs of development, the costs of testing drugs, especially on human subjects, and of drug development attempts that fail. In what follows, I will argue for the same conclusion as Swartz, that life-saving drugs ought to be treated as public goods, specifically addressing what I expect to be the main objections to that conclusion.engWith permission of the license/copyright holderright to lifepublic gooddrugsBioethicsSocial ethicsSexual orientation/genderMedical ethicsHealth ethicsArticle