How pharmaceutical companies game the patent system

When these companies compete, in the current system, the people lose.

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  • When a company reaches the top of the ladder, they typically kick it away so that others cannot climb up on it. The aim? So that another company can't compete.
  • When this happens in the pharmaceutical world, certain companies stay at the top of the ladder, through broadly-protected patents, at the cost of everyday people benefitting from increased competition.
  • Since companies have worked out how to legally game the system, Amin argues we need to get rid of this "one size fits all" system, which treats product innovation — "tweaks" — the same as product invention.
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What is the Green New Deal?

The Green New Deal is an ambitious attempt to fight climate change, but is it destined to hit the political skids?

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stops by the Sunrise Movement's sit-in protest at Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's office. Credit: Sunrise Movement / Twitter
  • Recent protests by the Sunrise Movement have taken the Green New Deal from forgotten policy to trending hashtag.
  • The Green New Deal aims to move the U.S. to 100% renewable energy within a decade.
  • Proponents also hope to catalyze a top-down restructuring of the U.S. economy and advance social justice issues.
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We could cut the opioid death rate by 50% – but we’re not

As more and more people die, drug companies keep reaping in a massive profit.

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  • Drug companies make huge profits by flooding the market with overly powerful — and highly addictive — drugs.
  • Some high profile deaths over the last several years have brought this problem to the headlines. It's everyone, not just middle America, who is getting hooked.
  • Why do we let Big Pharma rule over? Journalist and author Maia Szalavitz investigates.
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Trump’s not the problem. He’s a symbol of 4 bigger issues.

The countdown continues! Our 8th most popular video of 2018 cuts through the political fray.

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  • If the problem was just Trump, it wouldn't be happening in other places around the world, says political scientist Ian Bremmer.
  • All sorts of advanced industrial democracies have people getting angrier and voting more and more against the establishment.
  • Even when their economies are doing well, four factors exist that rip at the fabric of civic nationalism. What's surprising, however, there is one developed country that isn't having such issues. What can we learn from them?
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Too far right and left? DC think tank releases manifesto for radical centrism

Americans must choose the middle path, away from the fundamentalist positions on both the right and the left, argues a Washington think tank.

  • Niskanen Center, a Washington think tank, argues for avoiding the extremes of political positions.
  • The analysts propose that both a regulated free market and bolstered social insurance programs are important.
  • If we don't correct course soon, the American political system may never recover, warn the authors.
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