Drug War
There are hundreds of social/economic issues that really get under my skin. One that raised my ire today was the cost of prescription medication.
I recently had a prescription that cost $35. A couple weeks later I had to have it refilled for another $35. I thought this was a terrible injustice. So today I'm reading a NY Times article about a cancer medication that will cost about $100,000 per year. The drug, Avastin, is made by a company called Genetech, which had about $6 billion in sales last year. (The scary thing is that other drugs cost even more than this one!!)
The following is from the Times article:
"Until now, drug makers have typically defended high prices by noting the cost of developing new medicines. But executives at Genentech and its majority owner, Roche, are now using a separate argument — citing the inherent value of life-sustaining therapies.
"If society wants the benefits, they say, it must be ready to spend more for treatments like Avastin and another of the company's cancer drugs, Herceptin, which sells for $40,000 a year."
Doctors are concerned this philosophy may raise the already out of control price of other drugs. Basically more companies may say: "You wanna live? Then you'll pay whatever price we want." Like the story below on the Jacksons, I find myself scratching my head and wondering where the humanity is in the decisions by drug companies. Sure, you have to make a profit to stay afloat and keep making your product, but do you have to make millions--if not billions-in profits while many people die because they cannot afford your drug?
Another example of the heartlessness and greed of corporate America.
I recently had a prescription that cost $35. A couple weeks later I had to have it refilled for another $35. I thought this was a terrible injustice. So today I'm reading a NY Times article about a cancer medication that will cost about $100,000 per year. The drug, Avastin, is made by a company called Genetech, which had about $6 billion in sales last year. (The scary thing is that other drugs cost even more than this one!!)
The following is from the Times article:
"Until now, drug makers have typically defended high prices by noting the cost of developing new medicines. But executives at Genentech and its majority owner, Roche, are now using a separate argument — citing the inherent value of life-sustaining therapies.
"If society wants the benefits, they say, it must be ready to spend more for treatments like Avastin and another of the company's cancer drugs, Herceptin, which sells for $40,000 a year."
Doctors are concerned this philosophy may raise the already out of control price of other drugs. Basically more companies may say: "You wanna live? Then you'll pay whatever price we want." Like the story below on the Jacksons, I find myself scratching my head and wondering where the humanity is in the decisions by drug companies. Sure, you have to make a profit to stay afloat and keep making your product, but do you have to make millions--if not billions-in profits while many people die because they cannot afford your drug?
Another example of the heartlessness and greed of corporate America.
posted by Tim W. Jackson | 3:04 PM
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