Resuming where we left off last week: India is the largest provider of cheap, lifesaving medicines in poor countries across the globe and its supreme Court is currently facing a case that could alter that situation. In addition to the ethical discussion that balances competing values of access to affordable and needed health care and honoring intellectual [...]
Drug design, development, and distribution present a dynamic dilemma. Patenting drugs protects a company’s hard work while limits others from developing a similar drug. With patents, some argue, very few patients who need the drugs can afford them because that company has essentially a monopoly on that drug’s production and sales. Without patents, others argue, [...]
“Right now there are more people on Facebook than there were on the planet 200 hundred years ago.” This is how the video starts. Before even learning more about the next 28 minutes that follow this statistic, think about it. What does this mean? Initially it meant parents rolling their eyes and saying that our [...]
The other day, my friend and Consider colleague sent me an interesting column from the New York Times called “How to Argue About Politics.” In this column, philosopher Gary Gutting suggests that political discourse might have something to learn from the way philosophers debate each other. In politics, he says, politicians tend to present a weak version of their opponents’ ideology or [...]
In light of the recent spam University of Michigan students received in their inboxes, it brought back to mind the question of just how secure the realm of the Internet truly is. In a world where we rely so heavily on the Internet and online applications, it is difficult for me to reconcile its extreme benefits [...]
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post asking what had become of the Occupy Movement. It’s diminished, to be sure, but it remains a live force in American society and politics, especially in particular local contexts. This weekend I read a brief post at ThinkProgress on Occupy Our Homes, an outgrowth of the Occupy movement that has [...]
