About the Program
Harriet Washington argues that a growing corporate presence in the medical industry yields dire issues for patients, as drug development and research is initiated on a for-profit basis. Ms. Washington’s contentions of the industry’s fiscal motivations, include the reported versus the actual cost of bringing a new drug to market, her estimate that the monetary value of gifts given by corporate drug manufacturers to physicians in 2000 was $6 billion, and the restricted nature of medical patents, which, the author contends suppresses research. Harriet Washington speaks at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.