I was infuriated to read “Drug Industry’s Challenge to Maine Hits High Court” [Newsday, Jan. 23]. The drug industry is challenging Maine’s kind program, which reduces bloated drug prices for its uninsured residents.
What these drug companies are doing — choosing corporate profits over people’s needs — illustrates what Eli Siegel, the American historian and founder of the philosophy Aesthetic Realism, showed: that contempt — “the addition to self through the lessening of something else” — is at the basis of the American economy. It is contempt that permits drug companies to even think of making money from people who are sick, charging such high prices that many must choose between medicines and food.
Drug companies should say outright that their profits matter more than the health of other human beings, instead of claiming that price discounts will harm their research. These companies slyly make obscene profits, spend billions on advertising, lobbying and buttering up doctors while our tax money pays for most of the research.
Does a person deserve a roof over his head, food to strengthen him, medicines to heal his body, without somebody making big profits from these human needs? The answer is yes!
John Stern
Manhattan