Can the pharmaceutical companies and chemical/agricultural companies grow a conscience?

Consider how capitalism works.

Someone gets an idea about how to solve a problem. They invest millions and even sometimes billions in developing that product. The stockholders suffer with low or no returns on their investment for 5 or even 10 years.

Now when it is finally time to roll the product out, management is anxious, the stockholders are anxious, and if someone suggests that some of the test results are negative, everyone goes into high gear to roll over the objections and get the product out there.

Later the product is called by everyone the “cash cow” of the company. Anyone who wants to interfere with the cash cow may not be around long.

And once that cash cow becomes a billion or even a trillion dollar product, then any threat to that product revenue stream could sink the whole ship. The company will spend billions to protect that product from all threats both internal and external.

What wouldn’t the company do to protect that product? Kill scientific studies, discontinue research that might produce negative findings, launch media campaigns to create a positive narrative for the product, influence medical and scientific institutions by refusing funding for research that might produce negative impacts, and much more.

These companies will identify committees and even government agencies that can impact the sale of their product and systematically infiltrate those entities with their own “believers” and gradually take complete control – even regulatory agencies are not beyond this strategy.

So can these companies “grow a conscience”? Not a chance. Even if you prove that they’re killing babies, they will simply kill that news story and substitute another one – go home and have dinner and watch TV.