“How about ivermectin, a drug developed by Merck and Company that is the drug of choice for treating onchocerciasis (river blindness)? Since there is no market in rich countries for onchocerciasis treatments, Merck decided years ago to provide the drug free to poor countries where onchocerciasis is a problem. They are not all greedy all the time.”
Actually they do very well out of ivermectin – it’s quite possibly the most widely used vermifuge in veterinary medicine. It’s usually marketed to pet owners as Heartguard, a heartworm med. It has an interesting peculiarity in that it works great for almost all breeds of dogs except Collies (all breeds of Collie) where there is a high occurrence of toxicity due to a genetic mutation in the breeds. Fortunately for Collies (and their owners) milbemycin oxime, marketed as Interceptor works equally well.
The capacity for direct self-contradiction within a single statement is one of the most remarkable aspects of human language, in addition to providing a peculiar insight into the odd workings of the human mind.
Geez, my chance for two rants on the same general issue in one day. Why don’t I feel luckier?
Lobbying is an ugly fact of life in the US. It’s an ugly game, but the fact is that if you don’t play it, you’re likely to get legislated out of business. violet9, if you’re basing your opinions of the industry from your experience with their lobbying groups, and on clearly biased publications with names like “Profiting from Pain: Where Prescription Dollars Go,” you need to rethink a bit.
miamouse, your friend should have compared prices for, say, rice in the US and Thailand while she was about it. I’d wager that one American dollar would buy a lot more rice in Thailand than it would in an American supermarket. Cost of living is a lot less in most other countries. Plus, when medicine is more socialized (I don’t know if it is or not there, but it is in lots of places), prices are cheaper for medical care, but not because the providers are making less money-it’s just that part of the cost is borne by the citizens as a whole. You’re paying for medicines for everybody when you pay your taxes every year. That may be a good thing-but it’s not relevant to the pharmeceutical company policies.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to cut this short-I’m at work right now, and I’ve got to get back to exploiting the poor. :mad:
No contradiction at all. “Disgruntled employee” typically implies problems at work with supervisors or employee policies - nothing could be further from the truth in my case. I got on well with my bosses and co-workers, they had the best benefits package I’ve ever had - free medical, unlimited sick leave, 3 weeks vacation the first year, an immediate automatic Christmas bonus based on a percentage of your salary for all employees from date of hire - oh - and the Christmas parties!! I’ve never worked for an organization that held theirs in the best hotel in town and gave away TWO trips to Europe and TWO trips to the Carribbean, plus several hefty gift certificates as door prizes.
If I needed extra help I picked up the phone and hired all the temps I wanted for as long as I wanted - no requisition, request, review or permission needed. It was a great place to work - I’ve never SEEN so much money.
I fail to understand your supposition that firsthand experience of the inner workings of an organization is proof I have no idea what I’m talking about.
SCSimmons - PhARMA is NOT a lobbying organization - it’s a member association that provides a wide range of services to its members. Yes, lobbying is a fact of life in America, and since I’ve lived in Washington, DC for the better part of 25 years, I am very well acquainted with that fact - thanks for your condescension. But there is lobbying and then there is falsification of documents, falsification of research, falsification of credentials, all of which were routine tools for the drug lobby when I worked for the association.
I provided my experiences and gave cites for information for people who were interested in the topic. The cites could be a useful starting place for one’s own research. To argue that I’m ignorant or naive to assert that there is a serious problem with health care in this country is absurd and doesn’t require any further counter-arguement from me.
Monopolies often lead to higher prices. The reason governments allow monopolies is that without them the market might be underserved which could be worse than non-competitive prices.
Should the US government cap the prices of drugs? Numerous arguments could be made for or against in a different thread.
IMHO this discourse is emotionally charged because many people who contribute to this board might consider affordable brand name prescription drugs a necessity of life.
Some of us are fortunate to be able to purchase brand name drugs for a reasonable co-pay. Those without health insurance can oftentimes purchase a generic equivalent or an older drug at a significantly lower price vs the hot new drug. Others are not so fortunate and choose to go without medicine.
I think most of us have a basic understanding of why monopoly prices for drugs or anything else seem so high (the OP) Whether or not this is fair is another question.
bad student, did those links help at all? Here is an online book chapter that talks about the third party payment thing I mentioned: www.galen.org/book/chapter2.html
Basically the problem is that for an action to be optimal, the marginal cost must equal the marginal benefit. The third party payments, i.e. insurance, lowers the marginal cost to the consumer and thereby raises demand to a level higher than is socially optimal. Interestingly, the RAND corporation in the 70s did an experiment on this very subject.
What they found was that medical care consumption, as predicted by economics, is sensitive to the marginal cost. Notably they found that,
In other words, by making (in this context) medicine available through insurance we over consume. The result is that demand is too high and that drives up the price. People without insurance get screwed in the deal!
You could say that people who get more medicine are healthier. Fair enough, except that in the study it was discovered that
So there we see another economic reason why medicine prices are high. A solution then would a program that forces the consumer to eat the marginal cost, such as medical savings accounts perhaps.
Thanks to all the people that took the time to consider the question I posted and provide excellent links and information, thought provoking opinions and experiences. It is a great help to me in my research/writing and also inspiration to continue exploring this issue.
Now that I’m more aware of the economic complexity and the ethical controversy involved, I’m leaning away from emphasis on pharmaceutical companies for this particular paper. In order to contribute something productive to that aspect of the healthcare debate I would need to have a much more in depth understanding of economics and that will take time.
Still there are many practices within the industry that I feel are worth investigation, for example…when major companies buy the smaller companies that produce generic versions of their drugs, what impact does this have on the market and the consumer?
I don’t think it takes an expert of any kind to see the implications there. I feel that capitalist monopolization of any part of the health care industry is a threat to public health.
As a starting point, my first paper will focus on Canadian standards of health care entitlement and accessability and how the increasingly prominent role of drug therapy in health care is being addressed.
And speaking of it, I must get back to writing, but once again, thanks to all, your responses are much appreciated.