Essays on River Blindness

Merck and Its CSR

Facts River Blindness is a disease affecting people in some of the poorest countries in the world, in Africa and Latin America. In 1978, an estimated 340,000 people have gone blind and about 18 million were infected with the disease. Dr. William Campbell discovered a possible use for ivermectin: It can be developed into a cure for River Blindness. He thus sent a memo to Dr. Vagelos requesting funds to develop the new product. The problem is that the product cannot be profitable. The target communities are not among the company’s target markets. Since these communities are ...

Business Ethics

In the United States, drug companies enjoy a high-profit margin. It means that when purchasing different commodities, Americans incur high costs, unlike Canadians or Europeans. The drug industry has been noted as the most profitable sector in the economy in the last two years. The United States drug prices do not indicate a fair and competitive market since they sell only a handful of essential drugs with the aim of establishing a top selling market (Williams, 1985). Pharmaceutical companies have ethical responsibilities that contrast with that of small biotechnology organizations regarding research and innovation. For instance, CV Therapeutic is ...

Ivermectin

Abstract Ivermectin is a group of medicinal drugs under the larger group of avermectins. It was first discovered in the early 1970’s and accepted for use in the 1980’s in veterinary medicine applications and later for human conditions treatment. Biosynthesis of ivermectin is done from the primary compound avermectin and was discovered by a group of scientists who were led by Professor Satoshi Omura (Eng). The results of their research were later forwarded to the MSD research laboratories which isolated the compound avermectin from the sampled soil that was studied. Synthesis of avermectin results into eight main ...

“It’s a tough call whichever way you way you look at it.” Dr. Vegelos was moving in small circles heading to no definite destination. He was the most senior medical personnel of the state hospital besides being a research fellow at an affiliated non-profitable institute a stone throw from the main hospital. “ I suggested you give it some more time and finally things will fall into place. In this facility, we have seen and handled the most treacherous situation in comparison to this at hand at the moment. Added Dr. Campbell, who had to spend some nine years ...

Question 1

According to Trevino and Nelson (2011), stakeholders refer to individuals or parties affected by an organization’s business and actions. Additionally, stakeholders also have an interest in what the business does and how it carries out its activities (Trevino and Nelson, 2011). The stakeholders in this situation include the people suffering from onchocerciasis or river blindness, World Health Organization, shareholders of the Merck and Co, the employees of the company, their families, the media, and the government. Role-playing would be used as a means of understanding the ethical dilemma at hand (Trevino and Nelson, 2011). That is what it would ...