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The psychiatric drug crisis

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Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#11

Post by aweisberg »

TheLegace wrote: post #6

My ADHD medication Strattera costs $170 a month and since the generic version only saves me $20 causes serious nausea and vomiting I don't have any choice. And its one of the only medications you can't develop a tolerance for. Luckily I'm Canadian, working part time at a Canadian university where health insurance covers the costs.

For the last 18 years or so I have been taking some form of low cost Ritalin with a co-pay between 15-25 dollars.

This ancient medication that is a generic costs 130 dollars a month and that is the negotiated rate!

The money isn't going to research and it isn't going to manufacturing so where does it go?

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#12

Post by rsl7 »

aweisberg wrote: post #11
TheLegace wrote: post #6

My ADHD medication Strattera costs $170 a month and since the generic version only saves me $20 causes serious nausea and vomiting I don't have any choice. And its one of the only medications you can't develop a tolerance for. Luckily I'm Canadian, working part time at a Canadian university where health insurance covers the costs.

For the last 18 years or so I have been taking some form of low cost Ritalin with a co-pay between 15-25 dollars. This ancient medication that is a generic costs 130 dollars a month and that is the negotiated rate! The money isn't going to research and it isn't going to manufacturing so where does it go?

the cayman islands.

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#13

Post by johnchristopher »

jaredhansen wrote: post #10
eksith wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just obscene! All that markup over just the label. I understand that it takes R&D to develop new drugs, but the amount of profit sought by drug companies is stomach churning.

>amount of profit sought by drug companies is stomach churning What's the right amount of profit a company should seek? For reference, following are the latest reported profit margins of several companies: Eli Lilly: 20.34% AstraZeneca: 13.33% Novartis: 17.33% Apple: 19.53% Google: 18.11% Microsoft: 24.95% It's not at all clear to me that drug companies are somehow seeking more profits than other companies (or that t…

> It's not at all clear to me that drug companies are somehow seeking more profits than other companies.

Could it be high-level tax evasion ?

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#14

Post by scythe »

dancric wrote: post #7

The book, "Anatomy of an Epidemic", provides a really comprehensive look at how we ended up in this situation. Some of the keys here: 1) A desire to bring a level of "science" to a part of our physiology we don't understand. The thinking here is that while we do not understand the etiology of depression, we can at minimum begin to use blunt tools to solve problems. The issue as anyone who has studied complex systems…

>A desire to bring a level of "science" to a part of our physiology we don't understand.

Confer:

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2006/11/massacre_of_the_unico...

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/01/the_massacre_of_the_u...

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#15

Post by forrestthewoods »

msvan wrote: post #8
forrestthewoods wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obscene? What's the "correct" markup? I sell digital, single-player video games. My manufacturing cost is zero and markup is infinite.

Your marginal distribution cost is zero, but the manufacturing cost to design and develop the game is clearly not zero. The issue is that just because you can charge a lot doesn't mean you should. Although capitalism rarely works that way.

Perhaps a fair price point would be one that generates enough revenue to cover development costs and perhaps fund the next project as well? That sounds pretty reasonable.

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#16

Post by FrankenPC »

Maybe humans are just...unhappy? By that I mean as a race, we are inherently unstable (see: entire human history) and for a long time we kept it together by forming very tight family and community bonds. We had central, realistic, and tangible goals. We had an invisible friend (religion). As science has systematically stripped all that away (for the better mind you...), nothing has filled those needs. We don't need more facebook and texting, we need human contact.

HAHAHA! Just kidding! Did you see the latest iPhone! It's got moar processors!

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#17

Post by HarryHirsch »

jaredhansen wrote: post #10
eksith wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just obscene! All that markup over just the label. I understand that it takes R&D to develop new drugs, but the amount of profit sought by drug companies is stomach churning.

>amount of profit sought by drug companies is stomach churning What's the right amount of profit a company should seek? For reference, following are the latest reported profit margins of several companies: Eli Lilly: 20.34% AstraZeneca: 13.33% Novartis: 17.33% Apple: 19.53% Google: 18.11% Microsoft: 24.95% It's not at all clear to me that drug companies are somehow seeking more profits than other companies (or that t…

It's the fact that pharmaceutical companies are involved in the sphere of public health that makes people uneasy about excessive profits, whatever "excessive" means.

It's not only profits: lifestyle drugs, like statins and medication for ED are obviously a source of easy profit, meanwhile research into antibiotics is falling by the wayside.

The fact that the existing antibiotics are becoming useless and there is nothing to replace them is going to be a disaster. There is this current discussion about vaccination skepticism (to use a polite word); one reason that parents omit to vaccinate their children is that no one living has experienced what a genuine measles or polio epidemic is like.

The availability of antibacterials since the 1930s has been a similar miracle. You do not have to die of a severe infection, you can take medication against it. Unless there is investment in research, serious infectious diseases will be back.

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#18

Post by [deleted] »

rsl7 wrote: post #12
aweisberg wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the last 18 years or so I have been taking some form of low cost Ritalin with a co-pay between 15-25 dollars. This ancient medication that is a generic costs 130 dollars a month and that is the negotiated rate! The money isn't going to research and it isn't going to manufacturing so where does it go?

the cayman islands.

[deleted]

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#19

Post by TheLegace »

aweisberg wrote: post #11
TheLegace wrote: post #6

My ADHD medication Strattera costs $170 a month and since the generic version only saves me $20 causes serious nausea and vomiting I don't have any choice. And its one of the only medications you can't develop a tolerance for. Luckily I'm Canadian, working part time at a Canadian university where health insurance covers the costs.

For the last 18 years or so I have been taking some form of low cost Ritalin with a co-pay between 15-25 dollars. This ancient medication that is a generic costs 130 dollars a month and that is the negotiated rate! The money isn't going to research and it isn't going to manufacturing so where does it go?

Ugh don't even get me started on Ritalin(although it was cheap for me). It caused such a huge depression that permanently changed who I was and still feels there's no going back to before I took it.

Re: The psychiatric drug crisis

#20

Post by guard-of-terra »

FrankenPC wrote: post #16

Maybe humans are just...unhappy? By that I mean as a race, we are inherently unstable (see: entire human history) and for a long time we kept it together by forming very tight family and community bonds. We had central, realistic, and tangible goals. We had an invisible friend (religion). As science has systematically stripped all that away (for the better mind you...), nothing has filled those needs. We don't need m…

http://blog.wilshipley.com/2005/05/on-being-crazy.html is a very insightful read on that subject, from a successful but unstable person.

Is mankind only so smart because if we get any smarter, we cease to function correctly? Maybe it's just not evolutionarily advantageous to be smarter than we are; it makes us mopey, and we end up cutting our ears off when we're trying to woo girls, which rarely results in offspring.

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