Abstract

AbstractIn 2015, the American company Turing Pharmaceuticals increased the price of the drug Daraprim by 5,000 percent overnight. Politicians and healthcare representatives accused Turing’s CEO, Martin Shkreli, of having harmed both vulnerable patient groups and the healthcare system. The present article aims to attain an understanding of how Shkreli justified increasing the price and restricting the distribution of the drug Daraprim. Statements made by Shkreli in four video interviews were analyzed on the basis of Sykes and Matza’s (1957) theoretical framework of neutralization techniques. All techniques of neutralization were identified. Shkreli shifted the blame to other actors, denied the existence of victims and of harm to the nation’s healthcare system, characterized his accusers as corrupt, and portrayed profit maximization as a more important goal than public health.
 AbstractÅr 2015 höjde det amerikanska företaget Turing Pharmaceuticals priset på läkemedlet Daraprim med 5000% över en natt. Politiker och representanter inom sjukvården beskyllde Turings VD, Martin Shkreli, för att ha skadat både sårbara patientgrupper och sjukvårdssystemet. Den aktuella artikeln syftar till att nå en förståelse av hur Shkreli rättfärdigade prishöjningen och den begränsade distributionen av Daraprim. Uttalanden från Shkreli i fyra intervjuer analyserades enligt Sykes och Matzas (1957) teoretiska ramverk neutralisationstekniker. Samtliga tekniker identifierades. Shkreli skuldbelade andra aktörer, förnekade existensen av offer samt skada på det amerikanska sjukvårdssystemet, skildrade fördömarna som korrupta och framställde vinstmaximering som ett viktigare mål än folkhälsa.

Highlights

  • The pharmaceutical industry has been viewed as being involved in systematic and harmful corporate conduct that traditional legal solutions have continually failed to suppress (Braithwaite, 1984: 308f)

  • One finding from the few studies on harmful corporate conduct in the drug industry that have been conducted in a Scandinavian context has been that the selfregulatory system of the Swedish pharmaceutical industry is ineffective in restraining ongoing acts of misleading advertising (Zetterqvist et al, 2015; Zetterqvist & Mulinari, 2013)

  • All of the techniques of neutralization proposed by Sykes and Matza (1957) were identified in the empirical material when analyzing the ways Martin Shkreli justified Turing’s business activities

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Summary

Introduction

The pharmaceutical industry has been viewed as being involved in systematic and harmful corporate conduct that traditional legal solutions have continually failed to suppress (Braithwaite, 1984: 308f). Despite the negative consequences of such corporate conduct, there has been a lack of studies on the ethical standards found within the pharmaceutical industry (Zetterqvist, Merlo & Mulinari, 2015: 3). One finding from the few studies on harmful corporate conduct in the drug industry that have been conducted in a Scandinavian context has been that the selfregulatory system of the Swedish pharmaceutical industry is ineffective in restraining ongoing acts of misleading advertising (Zetterqvist et al, 2015; Zetterqvist & Mulinari, 2013). Drug industry representatives have long claimed that high prices for life-saving medications are necessary due to the cost of researching and developing drugs (Dukes, Braithwaite & Moloney, 2014: 215). Pharmaceutical companies have tried to obtain tax benefits by categorizing marketing expenditures as research and development in company records (Dukes et al, 2014: 216)

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