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  3. Of all the goods and services traded in the market economy, pharmaceuticals are perhaps the most contentious. Though produced by

Of all the goods and services traded in the market economy, pharmaceuticals are perhaps the most contentious. Though produced by

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问题     Of all the goods and services traded in the market economy, pharmaceuticals are perhaps the most contentious. Though produced by private companies, they constitute a public good, both because they can prevent epidemics and because healthy people function better as members of society than sick ones do. They carry a moral weight that most privately traded goods do not, for there is a widespread belief that people have a right to health care.
    Innovation accounts for most of the cost of production, so the price of drugs is much higher than their cost of manufacture, making them unaffordable to many poor people. Firms protect the intellectual property (IP) that drugs represent and sue those who try to manufacture and sell patented drugs cheaply. For all these reasons, pharmaceutical companies are widely regarded as vampires who exploit the sick and ignore the sufferings of the poor.
    These criticisms reached a summit more than a decade ago at the peak of the HIV plague. When South Africa’s government sought to legalise the import of cheap generic copies of patented AIDS drugs, pharmaceutical companies took it to court. The case earned the nickname "Big Pharma v Nelson Mandela". It was a low point for the industry, which wisely backed down.
    Now arguments over drugs pricing are rising again. Activists are suing to block the patenting in India of a new Hepatitis C drug that has just been approved by American regulators. Other clashes are breaking out, in countries from Brazil to Britain. But the main battlefield is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed trade deal between countries in Asia and the Americas. The parties have yet to reach an agreement, partly because of the drug-pricing question.
    Under the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, a deal signed in 1994, governments can allow a generic drugmaker to produce a patented medicine. America—home of most of the world’s big pharma, whose consumers pay the world’s highest prices for drugs—wants to use the TPP to restrict such compulsory licences to infectious diseases, while emerging-market countries want to make it harder for drug firms to win patents.
    The reoccurrence of conflict over drug pricing is the result not of a sudden emergency, but of broad, long-term changes. Rich countries want to slash health costs. In emerging markets, people are living longer and getting rich-country diseases. This is boosting demand for drugs for cancer, diabetes and other chronic diseases. In emerging markets, governments want to expand access to treatment, but drugs already account for a large share of health-care spending. Meanwhile, a wave of innovation is producing expensive new treatments.
According to the last paragraph, which one is true about emerging markets?
选项 A、Most people suffer from long-term diseases.
B、People get diseases much more easily than before.
C、People’s lifespan has been greatly prolonged.
D、Imported drugs’ price has been greatly cut down.
答案C
解析 根据题干中的“emerging markets”定位到最后一段第二行。首先，选项A意为“大多数人患上慢性病”。原文提到：In emerging markets, people are…and getting rich-country diseases. 其中“long-term diseases”和原文的“rich-country diseases”不符，故该项错误。选项B意为“人们比以前更容易患病”。这是原文未提到的，属于无中生有。选项C意为“人们的寿命大大延长了”。这与原文“people are living longer”一句对应，故该项正确。选项D意为“进口药物价格大大降低了”。这与最后一句“Meanwhile，a wave of innovation is producing expensive new treatments.”中的“expensive new treatments”是不符的，故错误。综上所述，该题答案为选项C。
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