71–80 of 118 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's IMO more likely than most people think. I really hope we don't see a civil war in our lifetime, but historically democracy's are highly unstable. This time it might be different, but then again it might not.
A Civil War today would look like Afghanistan or Iraq, not like the one we had before. It won't be pretty and will probably end in authoritarianism the likes we've never seen.
(this article can be read by searching for the title on http://twitter.com/ , then opening the link in a private window) > Two doses of an injectable form of naloxone, Evzio, cost $4,500, up from $690 in 2014. The price of other forms of the drug, including the nasally administered Narcan, typically range from $70 to $150 per dose, officials say. The cost of naloxone [1] is an insignificant part of the cost of revivi…
Take a look at what companies make these generic drugs. It's not big Pharma at all. It's small companies. Most big pharma give up on a drug once it goes generic.
Threaten to nationalize manufacturing of Naloxone, then do it if prices aren't brought down. If there's an epidemic and private manufacturers can't respond to the demand without raising prices by a factor of 10, something needs to be done. Annual overdose deaths have doubled over the last ten years. To bring a certain brand of hyperbole to the table, 2016 saw a loss of life equivalent to about thirty times that of 9/…
Threaten to nationalize manufacturing of Naloxone, then do it if prices aren't brought down. That should do wonders for R&D investment in the US!!
There's been little advance in overall mortality rates since the 1920s / 1930s. Much of that comes from public-health measures, including preventive care, water and environmental quality, food quality, risk reductions (e.g., safety standards on electrical and mechanical equipment, automobiles, etc.), through removal and reduction in contaminants (especially of environmental lead in paints and motor-vehicle fuels), an through, apropos this thread, reduction in habitual consumption of drugs, notably alcohol, tobacco, and various narcotics.
What R&D exists has focused to a large extent on chronic conditions (far better treated through lifestyle changes), in specific high-value conditions (think impotence, though that's arguably a quality-of-life issue), and in treatments which offer often only very slight improvements in treatment.
A notable exception would be the introduction of artificial birth control, notably hormonal contraception, "The Pill". In 1960. Fifty-seven years ago.
(And yes, there've been incremental advances since.)
The cancer that killed my good friend nearly 30 years ago? Still effectively untreatable. And the therapies used then were the same as had been used two, and for the most part three, decades earlier.
Directed national policy sometimes is precisely the right tool to bring to bear. C.f., China. Or Friedrich List.
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How does that explain that the autoinjector was $690 in 2014 but $4500 today?
I don't know about the autoinjector, but for a lot of medication the list price is there simply so that when the insurance company negotiates a lower price, the manufacturer will get a reasonable amount. in many cases expensive drugs can even be free if your income is low enough.
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It's IMO more likely than most people think. I really hope we don't see a civil war in our lifetime, but historically democracy's are highly unstable. This time it might be different, but then again it might not.
A Civil War today would look like Afghanistan or Iraq, not like the one we had before. It won't be pretty and will probably end in authoritarianism the likes we've never seen.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Threaten to nationalize manufacturing of Naloxone, then do it if prices aren't brought down. That should do wonders for R&D investment in the US!!
The majority of useful drug R&D (ie, not more penis enlargement pills) comes from research grants and university labs, not from private drug companies. It is a great meme Big Pharma has spread as a means to protect their lavish profit structure. The US leads in pharma research because it has the best research universities, not because it has private drug companies and no universal healthcare.
Absolutely false. Only 24% of new, innovative drugs come from academia. 76% come from biotech or pharma companies.[1]
And even if they were discovered by an academic center, someone still has to take it all the way to the finish line which is where most of the cost comes from.
[1]http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/11/04/whe...
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Threaten to nationalize manufacturing of Naloxone, then do it if prices aren't brought down. That should do wonders for R&D investment in the US!!
The present drug R&D regime is remarkably ineffective . There's been little advance in overall mortality rates since the 1920s / 1930s. Much of that comes from public-health measures, including preventive care, water and environmental quality, food quality, risk reductions (e.g., safety standards on electrical and mechanical equipment, automobiles, etc.), through removal and reduction in contaminants (especially of e…
Going to have to disagree with you. Penicillin wasn't discovered until the 1940's. That alone is a huge benefit to mankind.
Add on top of that the number of cancers who before were an immediate death sentence and are now chronic conditions (AML, HER2+ breast cancer, etc.)
Are there still cancers out there we can't treat? Sure, but that doesn't mean we haven't made massive strides in care.
Why are the opoid manufacturers who are creating this addiction in the first place not being billed for it?
Consumers can't buy direct, can they? There's always a middleman. Why not blame pharmacies or better yet, doctors?
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This is what happens in the UK right now. The government decides when the life support machine gets turned off- they pay for it so it's their choice. Not a common or planned outcome, but an unfortunate byproduct of nationalized healthcare. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-40423371
>Not a planned outcome. Sure, but the people responsible clearly don't care, as evidenced by the tone of the article. Drug addiction is the result of the weak border [1], and a depressing job market [2], which is also the result of the weak border [3]. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/us-heroin-coming-from-mexican... [2] http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/181469/big-lie-unempl... [3] https://www.judiciary.senat…
It's likely that some of the addiction problem in the US comes from this irresponsible prescribing.
https://www.dea.gov/divisions/hq/2015/hq110415.shtml
> Since 2002, prescription drug deaths have outpaced those of cocaine and heroin combined. Abuse of controlled prescription drugs is higher than that of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, MDMA, and PCP combined.
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> but no claims anywhere that prescribing heroin has eliminated all opiate fatalities. Can you cite a more rigorous source? I have edited the comment above to add a word. The friend who taught me about her opiate addiction knew how to manage her dose pretty well. Then the mental health industry got her addicted to benzodiazepines, which changed her tolerance. She overdosed on me when trying to get off the benzos. The…
I see credible claims that Switzerland has reduced overdose deaths from opiates with this strategy, but none saying they've "effectively eliminated" them. I didn't look very hard, and you see familiar with the subject. Can you point me to a resource establishing this? The thing I see reports saying Switzerland has effectively eliminated is deaths due to needle contamination. That's not hard to believe (but then, you…
The planet's various governments created the street drug marketplace by making desired substances illegal. The United States government created the country's drug culture by lying to people about the actual hazards of these desired substances.
Perhaps Switzerland has not eliminated opiate deaths, as my comment originally indicated, but the Swiss are doing better than everyone else in making progress at helping people with opiate addictions.
Results from the Swiss studies, however, show that
mortality among patients in heroin assisted
maintenance programmes is low, and lower than for
patients in other maintenance programmes.14 In
addition, the wider safety concerns could not be
empirically confirmed in Switzerland or the
Netherlands.15 Finally, the incidence of heroin
dependence has decreased greatly in Switzerland
since the start of the trials, and currently
heroin has a more negative image than it did 15
years ago.16
ref #14 (above) says:
CONCLUSION: Mortality in heroin-assisted treatment
was low compared to the mortality rate of Swiss
opioid users 1990s (estimated to be between 2.5
and 3%). It was also low compared to mortality
rates of opioid users in other maintenance
treatments in other countries as reported in the
literature. The SMR was also lower than that
reported in the only meta-analysis in the
literature: 13.2 (95% C.I. 12.3-14.1). The low
mortality rate is all the more noteworthy as
heroin-assisted treatment in Switzerland included
only refractory opioid addicts with existing
severe somatic and/or mental problems.