Frankenstein, Pharma and Public Health and Safety

Stewart Lyman writes a great article entitled: “Hollywood Sees Corruption in Pharma, and Suddenly Scientists are the Bad Guys.” He outlines some of the egregious behavior from pharmaceutical companies whose power and wealth have allowed a laxity toward public health and safety…all in the name of greed. Lyman talks about Hollywood’s role in demonizing science.

But Hollywood has it right in trying to convey some of these concepts that Mr. Lyman talks about through cinematography. It is important that Hollywood stay the course, too.

Science is now so tied into big money that corruption and loss of public health and safety rights are inevitable, not only from the egregious behavior from powerful Pharma, but also from the academic world who froth over patent rights and who has become monetarily entrenched with big Pharma. Together, pharma and academia, make one powerful network of scientific machinery that is able to manipulate media, government and legislation to their favor without due consideration of public rights and public health and safety.

Unfortunately there is little funding for public advocacy groups to protect public health and safety. So to some extent the public needs Hollywood to continue to tell stories which help educate us about these issues, issues that are subject to human rights and public health and safety abuses.

Even old movies are helpful. With human cloning now a scientific possibility, Hollywood’s portrayal of the human rights issues in the movie, Frankenstein, are issues the public should try to grasp.

Here is the link to Lyman’s article: http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2009/12/07/hollywood-sees-corruption-in-pharma-and-suddenly-scientists-are-the-bad-guys