ABSTRACT
It is widely agreed that pharmaceutical research has serious problems, but there is no consensus on what to do about them. The first of these is concerned with issues of political morality, while the second focuses on scientific methodology, yet they turn out to be surprisingly related. The general idea is that everyone's medical needs are covered free of cost to the individual. On utilitarian grounds, socialized medicine does the most good for the least cost. Once aware of the issues involved in medical research, especially pharmaceutical, any reasonable person will be horrified and want to make changes. In his contribution to this volume Reiss argues for two important points. The first is to banish patents entirely, on the grounds that they do not promote innovation but rather stifle it. The second major suggestion Reiss makes is that randomized controlled trials are overrated when it comes to evidence in medical research.
