History Main / WithholdingTheCure

* The Film/SyfyChannelOriginalMovie ''Film/DoOrDie'' has the BigBad running a corporation that is hailed as heroic for finding a cure for an aging disease, but they still love to ration it or jack up the price all the time.

* The Film/SyfyChannelOriginalMovie ''Do or Die'' has the BigBad running a corporation that is hailed as heroic for finding a cure for an aging disease, but they still love to ration it or jack up the price all the time.

** In ''ComicBook/DoctorStrange: The Oath'', Doc retrieves a magical elixir that has the power to "erase what troubles the mind of man", hoping it can save Wong's life. It turns out to be the CureForCancer (and [[{{Panacea}} everything else]]), which causes a corrupt pharmaceuticals company to send an assassin to shoot Strange and steal the elixir. For extra points, Wong is dying of cancer and being kept alive with "Timelozar", which is manufactured solely by "Timely Pharmaceuticals", the exact same company that sent the assassin.

** ''VideoGame/DeadRising3'' [[spoiler:confirms that there is a cure, but Mallon didn't know exactly where it was. However, she triggered an outbreak in the city the cure was in, so that her military organization could keep the cure to themselves while they took over America with subterfuge and zombie infection weapons]].

** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'': In "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E1Night Night]]", the Malons' [[PlanetOfHats hat]] is looking for a LandfillBeyondTheStars to dump radioactive antimatter waste from inferior warp technology. The current captain's dumping ground is an inhabited is inhabited so the crew look for a better way: Federation warp technology, which recycles its theta radiation. He rejects this as it would put him out of business. Chakotay points out that he's throwing away a great business opportunity, but he counters that he is already making lots of money thanks to his secret dumping ground, and would rather bet on what he has, than risk the financial chaos caused by the introduction of a world-changing technology. They never try this tactic with any other Malon captain, presumably assuming they would reject it for the same reason.

As you may know, this trope overlaps with PredatoryBigPharma to form one of the biggest conspiracy theories in the world: the belief that "Big Pharma" has developed cures for AIDS, cancer, the common cold and so on,[[note]]Despite the common cold and cancer both not being a single disease but a ''type'' of disease[[/note]] but would rather sell treatments that don't actually cure anything just to maximize profits -- even although, due to the way both medicine and diseases work, it would be highly debatable whether commercializing the cure would not be at least just as profitable.[[note]]Depends on the individual theory and the extent of its claims, of course, but the standard variation summed above is basically describing a self-defeating plan. Expensive, less effective treatments have those exact problems - not everybody in the world can afford them, and given that not even people who can are guaranteed to survive, that's also one less consumer for every patient dying, not to mention those who are discouraged from trying to get it for this reason. Meanwhile, a cheaper, clearly reliable cure would ensure a much wider base of consumers in every possible range, and because people can have cancer more than once in their lives (it's common, actually), patients alive and happy would have a chance to need the cure again rather than dropping out forever from the buyers' list.[[/note]] As such, [[Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease no real-life examples]] unless you have documentation of actual cure-withholding, not just speculation and people's perceptions.

* The first season of ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' deals with this in the form of the Murai Vaccine, a cure for an otherwise-incurable disease called cyberbrain sclerosis, and the various conspiracies at work to keep the vaccine from being approved for the general public in favor of {{Nanomachine|s}}-based treatments - ''ineffective'' ones that nonetheless serve as excellent [[TestedOnHumans test cases]] for technologies that help JapanTakesOverTheWorld. One such is a subversion of the [[spoiler:EnhanceButton]]. Worst part? {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s and {{Corrupt Politician}}s use it freely in secrecy, saving themselves while using the citizenry as guinea pigs.
* ''Anime/HighlanderTheSearchForVengeance'' has this as one of the hero's main annoyances, behind the killing of his wife.

* In the ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'':
** Wakanda (the home nation of the ComicBook/BlackPanther) has had the cures for [[{{Panacea}} pretty much everything]] (along with free energy, spaceflight, etc.) for centuries but refuses to release them, at least when written by Creator/ReginaldHudlin.
** Norman Osborn also has the cure for cancer. He ends up weaponizing it when a pissed-off Deadpool comes gunning for him after Osborn steals his victory in ''ComicBook/SecretInvasion''.
** ComicBook/DoctorDoom apparently has a good method of treating burn victims, which he's withholding because he's ... well ... '''Doom'''. In ''X-Men vs The Fantastic Four'', he uses it on ComicBook/{{Storm}} after she was grievously injured in a fight with the Human Torch in order to endear himself to the X-Men, but it's never been seen since. X-Men ally Dr. Moira [=MacTaggart=] even wonders why he just sits on this medical breakthrough when it can be used to help millions.

** Cardiac became a vigilante/superhero when his brother died because of corporations using this policy.
** On a lighter note, when Reed Richards of the Comicbook/FantasticFour was messing around with calculations one day, he stumbled on a permanent cure for acne. Revlon and a dozen other companies are paying him dumptrucks full of money ''not'' to release it.
* ''ComicBook/TheInvisibles'' has, as one of its many conspiracy subplots, the agents of the Conspiracy being in full possession of the AIDS vaccine... which they engineered before they released AIDS into the world, so that they could chart its influence among "target populations."
* Following ComicBook/{{Superboy}}'s return to the land of the living in ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis'', he believes that ComicBook/LexLuthor does have a shred of humanity left in him and seeks to bring it out by helping him cure his ailing sister. He does so, lets her enjoy her freedom... then ''restores her illness'', promising that, as long as ComicBook/{{Superman}} lives, no one gets what he can create.
* ''ComicBook/Robin1993'': When the ComicBook/TeenTitans break into one of Lex Lutor's secret labs in order to steal a cure for what's currently killing Superboy, Speedy asks them to keep an eye out for anything labeled "cure for AIDS" and everyone agrees to, noting that it would be in character for Lex to hide such a discovery since they're literally there to steal a cure Lex kept secret. Unfortunately the lab they're in has a distinct focus on Kryptonian and Coluan biology rather than human.

[[folder:Film — Animated]]
* The DC animated movie ''WesternAnimation/SupermanDoomsday'' briefly mentions this as a KickTheDog moment. Lex Luthor has found a cure for muscular dystrophy, but he's holding it back until he can slow it down to a lifetime treatment and make more money, as he's not satisfied with the $300 billion he estimates it would already make him. The research, however, will have to be delayed because Luthor's scientists are ''already busy at similar projects.'' Superman, by contrast, is actively trying [[CureForCancer to cure cancer]] and is frustrated at his lack of progress.

[[folder:Film — Live-Action]]
* In ''Film/JohnnyMnemonic'', the world is in the grips of a pandemic, and an evil drug company that went through all the time and trouble to research, develop, and test a working cure for the pandemic doesn't want anybody to have it, and is chasing after the title character in order to suppress information on the cure that's locked in his NeuroVault. As long as the cure is suppressed, the evil drug company keeps making billions off "Paralon-B"--the watered-down cure--as "treating the disease is more profitable than curing it." The evil drug company even goes so far as to deny the cure to its own top executives, so at least they were consistent.
* In ''Film/MissionImpossibleII'', a good scientist spliced countless influenza viruses together into a super-influenza as part of the process of creating a universal cure for influenza. That worked out perfectly, and would have been worth billions. Unfortunately, he didn't realize until it was too late that he was working for an Evil Drug Company - that realized that his superflu would be worth ''hundreds of billions'' to the right buyer... and when he discovered this and went to the IMF for help, the agent they sent realized that a superflu outbreak would make a universal cure worth '''trillions'''. Cue gunfights.
* In ''Phase IV'' (2002), investigation on some mysterious murders leads to the discovery that a laboratory had discovered a cure for AIDS, but decided to murder everyone involved to keep selling existing treatments.
* In ''Film/Ultraviolet2006'', [[MediaScaremongering demonizing]] [[OurVampiresAreDifferent hemophages]] as monsters instead of treating them as victims of disease enabled the Evil Drug Company that has become the "Militant Medical Establishment" known as the [=ArchMinistry=]. Unfortunately, they did too good a job of hunting them and, by the time of the movie, needed a new threat to "protect" the world from -- a "human antigen", cultivated inside of a LivingMacGuffin. Once it's released, people will have to line up at [=ArchMinistry=] to get the cure or die. Cue GunKata.

* In Creator/MichaelMoorcock's ''Literature/TheElricSaga'', the hero is an otherwise sickly and weak albino who needs exotic drugs or the dread sword Stormbringer to live. In one story, the villain Yyrkoon keeps him prisoner and withholds both the drugs and access to the Sword for the sheer pleasure of watching his nemesis sicken and die.
* ''Literature/IxiaAndSitia'': In ''Poison Study'', Yelena is poisoned early on with something called Butterfly's Dust that will kill her if she doesn't get a daily dose of the antidote from her keeper. [[spoiler: This turns out to be made up, though.]]

* In the ''Lionboy'' trilogy, [[spoiler:the Corporation]] kidnaps Charlie's parents because they've [[spoiler:discovered a cure for asthma, which there's a world-wide epidemic of, and the Corporation makes a killing off of selling inhalers to people.]]
* ''Literature/TheLunarChronicles'': Used in ''Literature/TheLunarChronicles'', and quite cruelly at that, by the [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Lunar Queen]] [[ManipulativeBitch Levana]]. There is [[ThePlague a plague]] sweeping [[RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething Prince Kai]]'s kingdom, infecting thousands and thousands of people, including his own father, the Emperor. Just hours after his father's death (which was slow and painful) Levana arrives, offering one vial of the antidote — just enough to cure one adult male. She offers her [[BlatantLies sincerest sympathies]] that she arrived just a little too late for the cure to save Kai's father. She continues to withhold it as a way of [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe forcing Kai to marry her]] and subsequently giving her control of his kingdom. Making it even worse, [[spoiler:the Lunars are the ones responsible for the plague in the first place, albeit unintentionally, a fact of which Levana is well aware]].

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': Inverted. [[spoiler:Littlefinger]] is practically stuffing the "curing" medication down little [[spoiler: Robert Arryn's]] neck via a Maester (or using the poor guy as camouflage) in a bid to fully control when to kill the patient with it under the cover of helping them. The [[spoiler: Vale]] is, unknowingly, being held to ransom as a result. Remember, folks: too much of an otherwise good thing is often bad.

** ''Moth Flight's Vision'' has one of Clear Sky and Star Flower's kits get very sick, and Moth Flight wants to go over there and help the couple and their kits since she knows the cure. Wind Runner refuses to let her go over there, partly because of tensions rising between [=WindClan=] and [=SkyClan=] and partly because she still remembers Clear Sky's past crimes. Because of this, the kit ends up dying.
** ''Thunder And Shadow'' shows that [=ShadowClan=] cats are getting very sick, so Puddleshine, [=ShadowClan=]'s new medicine cat, goes over to [=WindClan=] to ask for ragwort so he can cure them. Onestar refuses to spare some herbs (even if his territory has plenty of it) and sends him away. Thankfully, Onestar's deputy Harespring is more merciful and offers Puddleshine some ragwort, saying that he won't let innocent cats die because of Onestar.

* There was an episode of ''Series/BarneyMiller'' where the perp was a research scientist who had destroyed the property of his former employers because they refused to let him research the cure for [some disease] on the grounds that it wasn't fatal and there were too few sufferers for a cure to be profitable. Barney managed to talk his former boss into dropping charges and rehiring the guy, partly with the argument that by the time the cure was developed there may be an epidemic, "with any luck".
* In the ''{{Series/Bonanza}}'' episode "My brother's keeper", Hoss rides into town to get the life-saving medicine for his brother Joe. On his way home, Hoss is ambushed by some thugs who hold the medicine for ransom.
* A killer in ''{{Series/Bones}}'' modifies a virus which kills his employee who found out what he was doing. Arastoo sticks his finger on a needle embedded in a bone and is near death by the time Booth drags the killer into the lab. The guy initially refuses to give up the anti-serum because it's as good as a confession. He reconsiders, though, when Brennan stabs him with a syringe that she says has the virus in it.
* ''{{Series/Continuum}}'':

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E6Dalek "Dalek"]], the villain brags about having discovered a cure for the common cold — which he isn't going to give to anyone, as it gets him more money if he just sells the existing medication.
* The Syfy film ''Do or Die'' has the BigBad running a corporation that is hailed as heroic for finding a cure for an aging disease, but they still love to ration it or jack up the price all the time.

* In ''TabletopGame/HcSvntDracones'' a division of Spyglass known as Progenitus discovered that the pharmaceutical corporations of the time had been suppressing cheap cures for practically everything in order to sell expensive treatments. They went public, and started producing the cures themselves. Four centuries later Progenitus is the one and only medical MegaCorp in the solar system, guaranteeing [[WeWillHavePerfectHealthInTheFuture Perfect Health]] for a low monthly fee, no differently from a cell service.

[[folder: Theatre]]

* In ''VideoGame/DeadRising2'', {{Zombie Infectee}}s can indefinitely delay their transformation into zombies via daily doses of Zombrex. There are accusations that the Evil Drug Company that makes the drug is working to prevent a cure from being discovered for economic and political power. [[spoiler:They're actually causing bi-yearly outbreaks to ensure a steady supply of the parasitic wasps used to make the drug - this also causes the uninfected to stockpile the drug, driving up their stock price.]] Cue gunfight.
** In ''Case West'', [[spoiler:BigBad EvilCripple Marian Mallon - who proudly displays a giant zombie bite on her cheek - implies that the accusations are true, and they are suppressing the cure in favor of distributing Zombrex for money and ForTheEvulz. VillainsNeverLie, but can you say SequelHook?]]
** [[spoiler:3 confirms that there is a cure, but Mallon didn't know exactly where it was. However, she triggered an outbreak in the city the cure was in, so that her military organization could keep the cure to themselves while they took over America with subterfuge and zombie infection weapons.]]
* This is one of many conspiracies present in ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' - the people who control the treatment also ''created the plague.''
** The prequel, ''[[VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution Human Revolution]]'' has an variation. The company [=VersaLife=], [[spoiler: the same front company who distributed the vaccine to Grey Death in the original]], makes Neuropozyne, a drug that prevents the human body rejecting mechanical augmentations. It is the ''only'' drug known to do this, meaning it is necessary to most augmented people and as a result had made the company a lot of money. [[spoiler:The company is controlled by the Illuminati, who use the drug as a measure of control. Sarif Industries have discovered an implantable material based on the biology of the protagonist, Adam Jensen, that may render Neuropozyne obsolete, so the Illuminati have the research labs destroyed and scientists involved kidnapped to prevent their control being challenged.]] These actions kick start the events of the game. By the end it is revealed that [[spoiler: one of the scientists involved also works on the Grey Death from the original.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Crackdown}} 2'', [[spoiler:the Agency]] is secretly withholding the cure to the Freak virus and [[spoiler:Catalina Thorne]] is trying to pressure them to release it. However, [[spoiler:the Agency refuses to release it because it would depower their Agents.]]

* ''VideoGame/Fallout3'': The Pitt (post-apocalyptic Pittsburgh) is an irradiated city where the slaves all suffer from a horrible disease while the one in charge holds the cure but refuses to share it, though it turns out [[spoiler:that the cure is his own infant daughter who was born with immunity; the reason he's withholding it is because he doesn't want to hurt her for the sake of the cure]]. The Lone Wanderer has the choice of siding with the tyrant in charge or a rebel leader to free the slaves and take the cure.
* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'': You visit Vault 81, a seemingly normal vault, when a young boy named Austin stumbles into a hidden passage to an unexplored sealed off section of the vault - and gets bitten by a diseased mole rat. He is infected with the SyntheticPlague that the mole rat was carrying, forcing you to venture into that section of the vault to find a cure. Unfortunately, unless you are either very careful or engage in a lot of SaveScumming, you can easily get bitten and contract the same disease yourself. And when you find the cure, there is only enough left for one person. At this point, if you have contracted the disease, you can deny the cure to Austin to cure yourself. Problem is, the disease is lethal to the boy, but only inflicts a measly 10 HP penalty on you. Naturally, withholding the cure pisses off the entire vault and they forbid you from ever entering again.
* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'': Batman has Mr. Freeze synthesize a cure for [[spoiler:Joker's Titan-poisoned blood]], but Freeze destroys the first vial and threatens Batman that he'll destroy the rest if he doesn't rescue Nora from the Joker.
** In the ending, [[spoiler:Batman seemingly considers this due to the unstoppable cycle of prison breaks and deaths Joker always causes. Batman was willing to give him the cure, but Joker stabbed Bats on the shoulder before revealing this. This results in Batman dropping and accidentally destroying the cure. [[NeverMyFault Joker blames Batman for this]], but finds the fact that Bats was ready to cure him humorous, and dies laughing. As there were no witnesses, most thugs in Gotham believe that Batman withheld the cure on purpose.]]
** In the Season of Infamy DLC in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'', [[spoiler:players can choose to let Ra's die by destroying the last Lazarus Pit on earth.]]
* In the bizarre 1998 point-and-click game ''{{VideoGame/Sanitarium}}'' it is eventually revealed that [[spoiler:the BigBad doctor Morgan attempted to kill the protagonist due to the latter discovering a cure to a deadly child-killing disease, one that Morgan's [=MERCy=] corporation was very profitably treating.]]
* An important late-game game mechanic in ''VideoGame/BigPharma'' - if you make a cure too good, its rating will skyrocket, followed by its price... for a little bit, when it stops ''treating'' suffers and starts ''curing'' them, permanently reducing demand (and thus price) for the cure. One of the reasons "Female Contraceptive" is such a good cure to focus on is it's guaranteed never to be, uh, cured.
* [[PlayerCharacter Commander Shepard]] can do this to the entire Krogan species in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3''. To deal with a galaxy wide threat, Shepard needs to obtain military support from other species including the ProudWarriorRaceGuys the Krogan, who are also ExplosiveBreeders.. The Krogan demand a cure for the genophage - a DepopulationBomb that has artificially dampened their population growth rate for over a millennium, ensuring that only one in one thousand of their eggs hatch into younglings. With the aid of a salarian [[note]]The inventors of the genophage[[/note]] doctor and a Krogan female victim of horrific medical experiments, you obtain a cure. However, just before you land on the Krogan homeworld to deploy that cure, the Dalatrass of the salarians implores you to withhold this cure in exchange for salarian military support. You can, if you choose to, sabotage the cure and trick the Krogan. Although, based on certain other choices you may have made, this can either be a brilliant strategic move, or end very poorly.
* In [[spoiler:''VideoGame/PresentableLiberty'', Doctor Money holds off the real cure, and instead sells a false cure that causes organ failure, and later organs of "dubious origin". The player character is one of the few people to receive the cure.]] [[note]] It is bad practice to spoiler an entire entry, but this is a case of {{Spoilered Rotten}}. [[/note]]

* ''WebComic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'': {{Dracula}} has found the cure for cancer, but he tells Doc [[http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/11p19/ he hid it on Mars]]. He did this because he thinks it'll be funny when humanity does reach Mars and finds it, and realizes how obvious it is.

* In 2001 ''Phase IV'', investigation on some mysterious murders leads to the discovery that a laboratory had discovered a cure for AIDS, but decided to murder everyone involved to keep selling existing treatments.

As you may know, this trope is one of the biggest conspiracy theories in the world: the belief that "Big Pharma" has developed cures for AIDS, cancer, the common cold and so on,[[note]]Despite the common cold and cancer both not being a single disease but a ''type'' of disease[[/note]] but would rather sell treatments that don't actually cure anything just to maximize profits -- even although, due to the way both medicine and diseases work, it would be highly debatable whether commercializing the cure would not be at least just as profitable.[[note]]Depends on the individual theory and the extent of its claims, of course, but the standard variation summed above is basically describing a self-defeating plan. Expensive, less effective treatments have those exact problems - not everybody in the world can afford them, and given that not even people who can are guaranteed to survive, that's also one less consumer for every patient dying, not to mention those who are discouraged from trying to get it for this reason. Meanwhile, a cheaper, clearly reliable cure would ensure a much wider base of consumers in every possible range, and because people can have cancer more than once in their lives (it's common, actually), patients alive and happy would have a chance to need the cure again rather than dropping out forever from the buyers' list.[[/note]] As such, [[Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease no real-life examples]] unless you have documentation of actual cure-withholding, not just speculation and people's perceptions.