Following a large scale publicly announced trial that has concluded drinking two litres of water a day reduces the incidence of serious illness and increases mortality rates, the biggest players from Big Pharma have been rushing to patent water or checking to see if they had already inadvertently patented it previously.
'Personally I wouldn't have released this report without redacting the word "water" or renaming it to something like "life-enlenghtenal",' said a representative from Big Pharma who handed out a business card with his name redacted. One of the largest pharmaceutical companies claims that it had already developed what the report calls "water" and had carried out extensive double blind trials with an enhanced version - provisionally labelled "bottled" against a placebo known only by it's cover name "tap". 'There were differences, however the biggest was the mark-up of "bottled" compared to "tap",' said a representative. 'Our evaluation of the results was the mark-up, of a factor of a hundred or so, was trivial, however since this report landed we realise that we could and should be charging tens of thousands of the base price, making our investment worthwhile,' he said today.
As an interim, Big Pharma has lobbied parliament to outlaw the supply of "tap" water as an unregulated drug source and is insisting that the sale of "bottled" varieties be restricted to pharmacies, preferably under prescription. Clouds are to be considered drug dealers and to be prevented from raining and lakes are to be secured by the military to prevent wild swimmers contaminating the core production factories. 'People, and fish, wee in lakes. You wouldn't take any other prescription drug knowing it had been weed or shat on, would you?' asked a representative.
'That's why our products are so expensive - it's only the NHS and the taxpayer that is shat on,' he added.