[A. Pole]

Washington generally has no duty to protect the profits of American firms that operate overseas.

Why "Washington" (US taxpayers) should care for the interests of private corporations which do not care for the other interests that their own? Let the corporations put their trust in free market and global trade!

[lucysmom]

The consequences are potentially dire. Antiretrovirals exist only because profit-minded drugmakers have invested billions of dollars in R&D.

That says nothing about billions in taxpayer funded grants to pharmaceutical companies for R&D. It says nothing about research carried out by NIH. It says nothing about the 67 Billion spent for sales & marketing vs the 30 billion spent on R&D.

Sometime I feel as if I'm being held hostage by the free market.