The health industrial complex: A patent recipe for profit
There is a quietly menacing machine humming behind the white lab coats and glossy public health campaigns. It does not wear a stethoscope or develop vaccines out of humanitarian impulse. It sits comfortably in boardrooms, trade negotiation halls, and financial spreadsheets — and its name, though rarely spoken aloud, is the Health Industrial Complex. Much like Eisenhower’s infamous “military-industrial complex”, this one operates in the shadowlands between public need and private greed. But instead of tanks and missiles, it peddles treatments and patents. Its battles are not fought on fields, but in courtrooms, WTO summits, and investor briefings. Its primary enemy? Affordable, equitable healthcare. ...