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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.
Pharmaceuticals are important because ______.
选项 A、they carry a moral weight
B、they can prevent and cure diseases
C、they can reflect a country’s economy
D、they will make society function better
答案B
解析 根据题干中的“pharmaceuticals”一词定位到第一段。该段首句提到：pharmaceuticals are perhaps the most contentious．(药品也许是最受争议的。)显然这与该题题于中important一词不符，而我们从后面会找到这么一句：they constitute a public good. 其中they指代上文中的pharmaceuticals，“public good(公共利益)”与题干中的“important(重要的)”比较接近，故该题答案来自之后的一句“because they can prevent epidemics”，其中“they”指代“pharmaceuticals”，“epidemics”=“diseases”，故我们确定B项为答案。选项A虽然在原文中有提到，但答非所问。选项C在该段原文中未提到，属于无中生有。而选项D意为：药品使社会更好地运行，原文说“healthy people function better as members of society(健康人作为社会一员能更好行使其职能)”，可见两者表达并不一致，故选项D错误。
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