LEGAL ENVIRONMENT 3 - Essay Example

The pharmaceutical industry in the developed countries is one such industry which has recently been condemned as relentless in the protection of its rights to the extent of infringing on ethical principles and humanity. This has been the major theme of Cooper, Zimmerman and McGinleys report in the Wall Street Journal (2001). The arguments presented therein shall be discussed in the following sections. In Cooper, Zimmerman and McGinleys article (2001) the authors have presented issues related to the controversial legal and ethical debates surrounding pharmaceutical companies of the developed nations.

The main arguments are that pharmaceutical companies charge exorbitant prices for their products even in poor countries which cannot afford to buy their medicines. This is especially true in the case of African countries where the major AIDS population depends on imported medicine for curing the disease. No doubt, the stance that the pharmaceutical companies had taken justify their business position nevertheless, one needs to also understand that corporate philanthropy is not limited to charity and donations.

It extends to corporate social responsibility as well. Ethically, pharmaceutical companies need to consider the human side of business as well; especially when the majority of their consumers are patients belonging to poor and under developed countries. According to Boateng (2001) the Big Pharmas are not the inventors of lifesaving drugs. In fact research indicates that the majority of the drugs researched in the United States and in other developed countries have been public-funded projects which have been entrusted to the private sector pharmaceutical companies for manufacturing and distribution.

The campaign against Africa and its generic drug importation is clearly a monopolistic approach to business practice and should be discouraged. Similarly, pharmaceutical companies across the world are pressuring world