Mercks Roy Funding Research Case Study

Merck’s Roy Vagelos funding research to develop treatment for river blindness was faced with controversies in the Latin America and the world at large. The reason why people were in support of the research was that it would save human lives that had been greatly affected by the worms that bred in rivers. The other thing is that the research would take the research industry in another level. This is because river blindness was a disease that had no cure and the getting cure for the river blindness would be of immense impact to the industry and world at large. Although the research required investment of millions of dollars, it did not matter to Roy Vagelos as long as he saved the human life. He argued that the sick people if healed would be innovative and most probably refund the government of the used resources. This meant the research would have a significant effect on the economy.
People on the other hand, opposed the research. They claimed that the due to the expensive nature of the research it would result to the production of substantially expensive cure. They claimed a little percent of the affected people could afford the treatment. The other thing why people opposed the research is because of the drugs used could result to death due to their severe side effects. This meant that close monitoring of the victims was required making it hard for people due to their busy schedule. The people argued that the substantially expensive drug would lead to deaths of more people in the name of treatment. This meant a substantial loss to the families through the resources and loss of life of their loved ones. This led to a strong opposition making Roy to look for other various alternatives to deal with the disease.