Corporate Social Responsibility

It is definitely a freedom to live in the United States. We have the luxuries of national companies being held by rule and regulations based on our guidelines all the way from our healthcare system, pollution control, to industrialization. We have laws and organizations such as the labor unions in this country that maintain the checks and balances. While our country does focus internally on a lot of issues, we have gone above other countries in aiding world issues. Issues such as HIV/AIDS pose as a global epidemic and the U.S. is providing much assistance to countries such as Africa with medical treatment. As the costs of medication for this disease is extremely expensive, companies that have patents believe it should be held at an international standard. This poses as an ethical dilemma where people who cannot afford drugs have to die because they cannot afford the high costs of these drugs. Under public pressure, large pharmaceutical companies such as

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Merck & Co., have steadily dropped prices in recent years and able to provide drugs at a reasonable cost to individuals in Africa. These few companies have adhered to an international social responsibility and adjust the costs substantially in Africa. The other dilemma that is seen by this is the high cost of R&D where the companies need to recuperate their costs and to provide returns for investors. I believe that the volumes of sales of these drugs are a way to circumvent the losses they would have incurred from selling the drugs to the few who can afford them. While globally, companies can choose to fight international patent laws or by adopting a more humanitarian and volume-based situation.

If we were to look at the lack of “best practices”, I’m sure we’ all remember when Nike took the brunt of ethical and social