Peter J. Pitts, a former associate commissioner at the Food and Drug Administration, is director of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, which accepts donations from health care corporations.

Then the top

Imagine that you are an inventor and the government steals your highly lucrative idea. The next day, you are informed that the government plans to mass-produce your invention and give it away for free. If you're lucky, they'll give you a pittance for your efforts.

This is what happens, with increasing regularity, to the manufacturers of lifesaving medicines. The most recent example occurred in Thailand when the military-appointed government issued "compulsory licenses" to obtain two drugs.

The first, the HIV/AIDS drug Kaletra...

Since the author seems to have worked for the FDA and directs the "Center for Medicine in the Public Interest" I have to assume the article is deceptive rather than misinformed. Rather than fisk the entire article, let me just ask: Do you really suppose that the big pharmaceutical companies wouldn't have produced the blockbuster AIDs drugs if they had know that Thailand was going to put it under a compulsory license...