Ethical Ethics Of Epipen

Superior Essays
The United States drug regulations are a joke. The only developed country I 've heard about that allows monopolies in the pharmaceutical world. Literally allowing them to set their own prices on drugs that have the capability to save one 's life. Recently, I did some research on EpiPens and their outrageous price hike. Knocking on the door on what we may think is unethical and inappropriate. Some may say that Mylan, the company behind the EpiPen cannot be blamed for their actions but in this paper, I intend to bring up ways in how this situation is deemed unethical and unfair. To shift gears, we can view it through the eyes of a deontologist and how they would analyze the situation; to them, Mylan is using people as a pure means to their …show more content…
A drug that was introduced in 1987 that helps with allergic reactions; by giving you a dose of epinephrine. The drug floated around until it landed in the hands of Mylan in May 2007. Since then they have lobbied and successfully got a law passed called the "School Access to Emergency Epinephrine Act." Which forces schools to purchase the drug. Therefore, if something may occur on school grounds there is an EpiPen available and you won 't have to face any legal authorities for not having one. It doesn 't stop there, though hospitals are also mandated to have them in stock as well. Leaving Mylan, coercively exploiting schools and hospitals. Setting these regulations into place was only the beginning they then slowly raised its prices then suddenly distastefully raised it to the unethical price we see now. Profits are disgusting especially since they 're at the feet of someone 's …show more content…
The reason behind it all boils down to intellectual property rights. Meanings they own the rights to create such medicine and no one can either make it quite the same or no one else can make it at all; depends on the patents at hand. For example, with the Epipen; Mylan owns ninety percent of the epinephrine industry which means they control mostly what happens with epinephrine and what not. They 've created a monopoly because they are the deciding factor to drugs like the EpiPen. It 's kind of weird that some competitors to Epipen had recalls or issues after they were released. If you ask me that 's kind of suspicious. If we look deeper into Mylan having these rights to being the main creators of epinephrine we can see why they have created such a distant price. They can say that they are the best and no one can compete blah blah blah. But in the end, the same product they charged two sum odd hundred dollars for is now a ridiculous six hundred plus dollars. This raises a red flag to a deontologist but to the government, it is completely legal and allowed. Makes you wonder if the government cares at all or if they use it as population control knowing not everybody can afford some of the increases. To a deontologist, we would say that it is wrong not only because what is the justification to the price hike…profit? Who benefits from that just the creator

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