Withholding the Cure

Chuck: A cure? You've had a cure all this time?
Marian Mallon: Of course, it wouldn't have been in our interests to release it.

— Dead Rising 2, Case West

Good news! There is finally a cure for that horrible disease. Too bad the cure is owned by Peace & Love Incorporated, who refuse to distribute it because they believe they can squeeze more money out of people who remain sick, or by the evil overlord who wants the people to die off so he can move in and occupy the land.

Withholding the Cure is when the cure really works and it is what people really need, but someone is keeping it from people for their own selfish reasons.

Compare and contrast Manufacturing Victims, which involves therapists keeping their patients in therapy. Then there's withholding medication to keep people in therapy, or withholding therapy to keep people on medication, both of which can be Truth in Television: In Real Life, some people need medication, some need therapy, some need a combination of both, and many need neither.

Sub-Trope of Information Wants to Be Free. Contrast Poison and Cure Gambit, where the villains are usually more than happy to distribute the cure (for a far-from-modest fee, of course), but in any case created the demand for the cure by starting the actual disease!

As you may know, this trope overlaps with Predatory Big Pharma 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 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. As such, no real-life examples unless you have documentation of actual cure-withholding, not just speculation and people's perceptions.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The first season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 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-based treatments — ineffective ones that nonetheless serve as excellent test cases for technologies that help Japan Takes Over the World. One such is a subversion of the Enhance Button. Worst part? Corrupt Corporate Executives and Corrupt Politicians use it freely in secrecy, saving themselves while using the citizenry as guinea pigs.
• Highlander: The Search for Vengeance has this as one of the hero's main annoyances, behind the killing of his wife.
• One Piece: During his reign of Drum Island, Wapol removed as many doctors he could find from his kingdom, save his own personal staff of 20. If any citizen needed medical attention, they had to beg him for it.

Comic Books

• The DCU:
  • Following Superboy's return to the land of the living in Final Crisis, he believes that Lex Luthor 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 Superman lives, no one gets what he can create.
  • Robin (1993): When the Teen Titans break into one of Lex Luthor'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.
• The Invisibles 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".
• Marvel Universe:
  • Wakanda (the home nation of the Black Panther) has had the cures for pretty much everything (along with free energy, spaceflight, etc.) for centuries but refuses to release them, at least when written by Reginald Hudlin.
  • 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 Secret Invasion (2008).
  • Doctor Doom 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 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.
  • In Doctor Strange: 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 Cure for Cancer (and 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.
  • Scarlet Centurion has cured cancer, and offers it to Squadron Supreme member, Tom Thumb in exchange for poisoning fellow team member, Hyperion. He refuses and the Centurion gets a chuckle out of the torment he caused.
  • Spider-Man character Cardiac became a vigilante/superhero when his brother died because of corporations using this policy.
  • On a lighter note, when Reed Richards of Fantastic Four 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.
• TAO of Wild C.A.T.s (WildStorm) claims to have the cures for AIDS and all forms of cancer, as well as a genetic patent on a strain of corn that will end world hunger forever. He uses these as bargaining chips when he gets in trouble. Majestic doesn't care.

Film — Animated

• Superman: Doomsday briefly mentions this as a Kick the Dog 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 to cure cancer and is frustrated at his lack of progress.

Film — Live-Action

• The Syfy Channel Original Movie Do Or Die 2003 has the Big Bad 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 Johnny Mnemonic, 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 Neuro-Vault. 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 Mission: Impossible II, 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 the 2002 film 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.
• In Ultraviolet (2006), Media Scaremongering against 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 Living MacGuffin. Once it's released, people will have to line up at ArchMinistry to get the cure or die. Cue Gun Kata.

Literature

• In Abarat, Christopher Carrion withheld a cure for a beast boy's condition in return for the boy's unwavering loyalty.
• In The Elric Saga, Elric 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.
• Ixia and Sitia: 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. This turns out to be made up, though.
• Subverted in The Lake at the End of the World. The Counselor tries to do this to Diana in order to get her to supply him with the equipment needed to dump poison into a nearby lake, but the community doctor gives Diana the full course of medication anyway.
• In the Lionboy trilogy, the Corporation kidnaps Charlie's parents because they've 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.
• Used in The Lunar Chronicles, and quite cruelly at that, by the Lunar Queen Levana. There is a plague sweeping 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 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 forcing Kai to marry her and subsequently giving her control of his kingdom. Making it even worse, the Lunars are the ones responsible for the plague in the first place, albeit unintentionally, a fact of which Levana is well aware.
• In Oryx and Crake, Crake pulls this one on the entire world, creating a wildly contagious hemorrhagic virus which he then implanted in supplement pills. He had the cure (and had indeed ensured that at least one person was immune to the virus) but had no plans to distribute it, since his Evil Plan hinged on most or all of the human race dying.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Inverted. Littlefinger is practically stuffing the "curing" medication down little 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 Vale is, unknowingly, being held to ransom as a result. Remember, folks: too much of an otherwise good thing is often bad.
• Warrior Cats:
  • 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 from the arc A Vision of Shadows 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.

Live-Action TV

• In one episode of Barney Miller, the perp is a research scientist who has 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 manages to talk his former boss into dropping charges and rehiring the guy, partly with the argument that by the time the cure is developed, there may be an epidemic, "with any luck".
• In the 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 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.
• Continuum:
  • In the first season finale, the pharmaceutical industry executives Kagame targets in the season finale were meeting to do this, along with price-fixing.
  • The third season has Kiera upset to find Liber8 are going after a company who will manufacture the cure to a deadly disease in the future. But in the course of the investigation, Kiera realizes that the company themselves developed the disease just so they could profit off selling the cure.
• Doctor Who: In "Dalek", Henry van Statten 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.
• Invoked in Empire. With Lucious desperate for a cure for his impending ALS, he approaches a "doctor" who claims to have developed a treatment that can cure ALS, but his research has been suppressed by the US government due to this trope. Needless to say, the charlatan skipped town with Lucious' money before the latter realized that the phony treatment was only making him sicker.
• In the penultimate episode of iZombie, Liv and the gang finally manage to get a sample of the original Utopium, the drug that created the zombie outbreak, to major scientist Saxon, assuming he'll have an instant cure whipped up in weeks. Instead, Saxon and his company decide they can make far more money with "chronic treatments" rather than an instant cure.
• Leverage: Redemption: In "The Card Game Job", Cordozar's pharmaceutical company has the cure to a potentially lethal medical condition. He suppresses it so that he can force the victims and their families to spend their whole lives paying for treatment that they need to come back for again and again while he keeps on collecting grant money from the government to finance the battle against that disease.
• Merlin (2008): Uther does this when Merlin is poisoned, intent on teaching Arthur a lesson.
• The Outer Limits (1995):
  • Played with in "Blood Brothers", in which an attempt to create a safe and reliable Knockout Gas for crowd control results in a drug that seems to boost body's ability to fight off any disease or toxin. The chimp that it's tested on is able to take several shots of cyanide without a problem. The scientist's brother is a Corrupt Corporate Executive, who immediately clamps down on the supposed panacea, claiming that it's likely to cause overcrowding, as people will no longer be dying at the same rate, while still breeding like rabbits. The scientist treats it as an attempt to make money, even though it's a clear case of Jerkass Has a Point (i.e., without Population Control, any such cure would be really bad for humanity). The exec brother then uses the drug on himself in order to treat his Parkinson's. However, at the end, it's discovered that the supposed "cure" is actually Cast from Lifespan, draining the body of all resources, until the person (or the above-mentioned chimp) just drops dead in a matter of days, completely spent. The exec brother spends the rest of his life in a sterile life support chamber, unable to move, as his body is no longer able to sustain itself.
  • Inverted in "The New Breed", in which a scientist is perfectly willing to release his new nanite-based cure that would make cancer (or any other cell-related problem) a thing of the past, only to meet opposition from people claiming that he's playing God. On the other hand, he's only at the testing phase, and the "cure" isn't even close to being ready for distribution yet. A friend of his ends up injecting himself with nanites in order to cure his terminal-stage cancer, which works at first (even fixing his poor eyesight), but the untested nanites then start making "modifications" to his body, reacting to what they perceive are flaws (e.g. inability to breathe underwater, limited vision, and need for additional defense mechanisms). In the end, the scientist is forced to kill the poor sap (at his own request) and burns down his lab in the process, forever destroying the potential cure.
• Star Trek:
  • Played with in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Symbiosis": the Ornarans claim they need felicium to treat a plague that is affecting their world. Their only source of it is through the Brekkians, and this is the only commerce between the worlds. Dr. Crusher determines that the felicium is an addictive narcotic and that the plague has long been cured. While the Prime Directive forbids Picard from revealing the truth to the wronged race, he finds a way to correct the situation by refusing to repair their few remaining ships. Without the ships, they will have no way to get the drug and will eventually realize they're not actually sick.
  • Star Trek: Voyager: In "Night", the Malons' hat is looking for a Landfill Beyond the Stars to dump radioactive antimatter waste from inferior warp technology. The current captain's dumping ground 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.
  • Star Trek: Enterprise: In "Dear Doctor", Archer decides to let an entire species die from a disease that Phlox could cure so that another race on the planet could have an "evolutionary breakthrough".
• Played straight in the final season of True Blood. In the previous season, a deadly virus that only affects vampires ("Hepatitis V") is released and threatens the entire vampire community including the regular cast. In the final season, the company that produces TruBlood (the artificial blood beverage that allows vampires to subsist without preying on humans) develops a cure for Hep V, but their corrupt CEO realizes he can make more money by selling a temporary vaccine through TruBlood. When Eric kills him and takes over the company, it's unknown if he keeps up the charade or releases the real cure. Given his rather complicated morality, it can go either way.
• V (1983): As part of a campaign against scientists, it's claimed medical researchers have withheld cancer treatments to insure they keep getting research money.

Tabletop Games

• In Hc Svnt Dracones, 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 Perfect Health for a low monthly fee, no differently from a cell service.

Theatre

• In La Bayadere, the titular temple dancer Nikea is bitten by a poisonous snake (placed in a bouquet by her love rival and her rival's father). The High Brahmin has the antidote, but he refuses to give it to her unless she gives up her love for Solor and agrees to be with him instead.

Video Games

• Batman: Arkham Series:
  • In Batman: Arkham City, Batman has Mr. Freeze synthesize a cure for 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, 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. 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 of Batman: Arkham Knight, players can choose to let Ra's al Ghul die by destroying the last Lazarus Pit on Earth.
• An important late-game game mechanic in Big Pharma — 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.
• In Crackdown 2, the Agency is secretly withholding the cure to the Freak virus and Catalina Thorne is trying to pressure them to release it. However, the Agency refuses to release it because it would depower their Agents.
• Dead Rising:
  • In Dead Rising 2, Zombie Infectees 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. 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 Dead Rising 2: Case West, Big Bad Evil Cripple 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 For the Evulz. Villains Never Lie, but can you say Sequel Hook?
  • Dead Rising 3 confirms that there is a cure, but Mallon didn't own it. However, she triggered an outbreak in the city the cure was in so that the military separatists she was working with could keep the cure to themselves. Their Evil Plan was to take over America with a combination of brute military force and mass-infections, forcing the survivors to kneel to the traitors or die to the virus (or their guns).
• Deus Ex Universe:
  • This is one of many conspiracies present in Deus Ex — the people who control the treatment also created the plague.
  • The prequel, Human Revolution has an variation. The company VersaLife, 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. 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 one of the scientists involved also works on the Grey Death from the original.
• Fallout:
  • The Pitt (post-apocalyptic Pittsburgh) from Fallout 3 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 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.
  • In Fallout 4, 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 Synthetic Plague 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 Save Scumming, 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.
• Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith keep the rakghoul cure to themselves so their troops can walk around the Undercity without opposition. Your character encounters a pack with some serum in it, as a patrol got ambushed and eaten by the beasts. You now have the option to give it to an Upper City doctor who will make it cheaply available for everyone or hand it over to a crime boss's middleman. It'll be available, just so ridiculously expensive the people who would benefit can't afford it.
• Commander Shepard can do this to the entire Krogan species in Mass Effect 3. To deal with a galaxy wide threat, Shepard needs to obtain military support from other species including the Proud Warrior Race Guys the Krogan, who are also Explosive Breeders.. The Krogan demand a cure for the genophage — a Depopulation Bomb 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 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. Based on certain other choices you may have made, this can either be a brilliant strategic move, or end very poorly.
• In Presentable Liberty, 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.
• In Sanitarium, it is eventually revealed that the Big Bad 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.

Webcomics

• The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: Dracula has found the cure for cancer, but he tells Doc 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.
• Drowtales: The Sharen rediscover a deadly parasitic spore plant from their expeditions, and invent a cure so they can spread an enhanced version of the disease, leaving only their supporters standing. Unfortunately, the Saghress react by killing the scientist responsible for enhancing the disease... who also happens to be the only person who knows anything about the cure, leading to an incurable pandemic.
• Schlock Mercenary: The U.N.S. accidentally invented a cure for age-induced death while experimenting with super-soldier genetics, but they kept the results a national secret for centuries, out of fear of being pressured by the public into freely distributing unstable military-grade augmentations as medical supplies. Their motivation rings hollow once Petey reverse-engineers and isolates the cure for public use in a matter of years.

Western Animation

• The Family Guy epsiode "The Old Man and the Big 'C'" reveals that Carter Pewterschmidt discovered a Cure for Cancer in the 1990s but is keeping it to himself purely because treating a cancer patient for the rest of their lives will earn far more profit than curing them with a single treatment. When Brian and Stewie expose this secret, Lois makes Carter give his word to release the cure. He immediately goes back on his word and flat-out admits he lied to Lois's face when she calls him out on it.

Real Life

• This Goldman-Sachs report is an interesting case; it proposes that drug companies should side-step the issue by not investing in cures in the first place.
• The Tuskegee syphilis experiment. A clinical study run by the US government for fifty years on the progression of syphilis in southern Blacks. When the study started in 1932, it involved treating syphilis with an expensive and not-very-effective treatment. When the funding got reduced, they couldn't afford the treatment. Instead, they just continued to study the patients, while telling them they were being treated so they could study the progression of the disease, without informing them exactly what they had. Then penicillin became available in the mid-1940s, and by 1947 was recognized as a cheap and effective cure — but the doctors in charge realized that curing the patients would put an end to their research. Not only did they withhold treatment, but they refused to tell the subjects what they were sick with, allowing the disease to spread in the process — and the study continued until 1972. This pretty much destroyed any future attempts at using science to justify racism. It showed that black people also were affected by the disease exactly the same that white people were. Before this, it was almost accepted that white people were medically different from black people and therefore superior or such nonsense.
• Many a real-life company has been accused of this, and it does happen, but for two separate reasons;
  • Not so diabolically, after the huge mess that was Thalidomide being rushed to market without research about potential side effects, a lot of countries made strict laws about medical testing. So a potential cure must go through years and countless batteries of tests before it can even be approved for humans. And if they give the experimental drug to a person with a lethal disease and they die, that gets counted as a death caused from the drug. So that results in even more tests and more years to get to market.
    • It's worth noting that this does not apply with the US market—one of the tests the FDA required already at the time was one intended to see if it'd be transmitted through the placenta.^note Failing this test doesn't necessarily mean a drug won't get approved, as Thalidomide is currently an option for chemo patients.
  • Assuming you somehow manage to get your potential cure or vaccine through testing, it's often actually very limited in what it actually is capable of doing, such as this vaccine for herpes that provides women and only women with some protection. The overall expectation is that you can be relatively certain that a certain part of the population will believe it is a Magic Antidote, and with some diseases the legal risk posed by this particular group is bad enough you may not even be able to find enough funding to do human trials.
• Averted by Jonas Salk. He had developed the first effective vaccine against Polio which was ravaging the United States and other countries at the time. He refused to patent, so that it could be made at cost, and made Polio something that only happens in third-world countries. He spent the last fifteen years of his life attempting to do the same to AIDS—but was unable to finish his research, due to the inability to get insurance.
• This trope is Older Than Steam: The herbalist Nicholas Culpeper attracted the ire of the College of Physicians as early as the 1650s by selling his book The Complete Herbal to the general public at a price the working man or woman could afford and translating some of their approved texts from Latin to English so they could be read and understood by anyone.

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