Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real? • Hacker News Board

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#431

Post by KirillPanov » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:18 AM UTC

iso1210 wrote: post #410

nostromo wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy prescription drugs online from India without a prescription for super cheap. They arrive in your mail. This is probably illegal, but not enforced. I’m insured so it’d actually be cheaper for me personally to go in to the doctor and ask for a prescription. But I got tired of taking time out of my day for this - these are just beta blockers for fuck’s sake.

> You can buy prescription drugs online from India without a prescription for super cheap. They arrive in your mail. And what guarantee do you have of their contents?

Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS [1]) by an independent third-party lab [2]. For unscheduled substances they'll even email you the mass plot.

Nearly all of our (US) pharmaceuticals already come from India anyways. Manufactured there from Chinese bulk precursors.

I trust a third-party GC/MS plot way more than any brand slapped on a package.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chromatography–mass_spec...

[2] https://energycontrol-international.org/

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#432

Post by onethought » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:24 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #301

hyperhopper wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also a third issue: The high cost of medicines that are low cost to produce, and are sold at low cost elsewhere

This one is particularly prickly because the high cost paid in the US funds medical R&D and extremely expensive clinical trials which other countries are free riding on by imposing price controls. We still need to fund the R&D and clinical trials (unless they could be made less expensive somehow), so the most obvious solution would be to have other countries pay their fair share so the US could stop subsidizing every…

“Imposing price controls” !? Couldn’t the company just not sell at that price… it is obviously still profitable to them.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#433

Post by CryptoPunk » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:28 AM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #249

renewiltord wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lobbying to: A. Limit medical care to being provided by these people B. Limit number of residencies

"Limit medical care to being provided by these people" Who else would provide this care? This licensure is similar to other professions, like lawyers, and really doesn't take very much lobbying since the majority of the public want oversight of these sorts of professionals. Residencies simply haven't kept pace with medical student numbers. They have gone up though. The main question is "where does the funding come fr…

>>the majority of the public want oversight of these sorts of professionals.

The majority of the public wants whatever they are lobbied to believe they need. The majority also supports the War on Drugs and criminalizing the sex trade, and for the same reason: fear tactics used to convince them that the mere option of doing an ostensibly harmful activity, is to the detriment of themselves and society at large, even though the activity would harm no one but the party engaged in it.

Plenty of medical procedures could be done by nurses and other non-physician medical professionals, yet this entire option is barred to the public. There should be a free market, with consenting adults free to choose for themselves who to hire to perform services for them.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#434

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:31 AM UTC

benrbray wrote: post #355

R0b0t1 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People already die quietly alone all the time. How far do we need to go to have everyone have a babysitter, especially at their own expense?

I think the idea is that the doctor is actively intervening in your medical treatment, so they have a responsibility to make sure they're getting it right. This person is free to stop taking their meds and die alone whenever they like. Visits to the doctor should be cheaper and more efficient, but people shouldn't stop going to the doctor.

Doctors are the third leading cause of death, after only heart disease and cancer.

By many measure: if you see a doctor, cross the street.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#435

Post by MagnumOpus » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:36 AM UTC

coryrc wrote: post #417

hug wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't pass the smell test. Anyone making the decade-old version of insulin and selling it for 1% of the price would corner a large portion of the market immediately. Anyone without good health insurance, which is a large and increasing part of the population, would immediately jump on the lower priced version. And since when are insurance companies excited to pay for the more expensive drug with limited extra…

You can buy the old one for cheap now: https://diabetesstrong.com/walmart-insulin/ That's 6% not 1% of the cost of new ones, though.

Since this month - and it is headline news all over the country... It shouldn't be extraordinary that cheap drugs needed by millions are available cheaply. (See also: Epi Pens.)

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#436

Post by brigandish » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:38 AM UTC

hug wrote: post #362

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't a 100 year old drug. There are newer formulations that are faster acting, longer lasting, easier to administer, etc. They're newer so they're still under patent so they're a lot more expensive (because the rest of the world makes the US pay to develop the newer formulations). When insurance is paying for it, people prefer the newer formulations. Then, since most people have insurance, there wasn't enough of…

This doesn't pass the smell test. Anyone making the decade-old version of insulin and selling it for 1% of the price would corner a large portion of the market immediately. Anyone without good health insurance, which is a large and increasing part of the population, would immediately jump on the lower priced version. And since when are insurance companies excited to pay for the more expensive drug with limited extra…

> This doesn't pass the smell test.

We saw something similar happen during the pandemic. There has to be infrastructure and people with the skill and knowledge to support an industry available, and even if you had those people available you can't just ramp up production in any old place. That's why there were supply chain problems and will continue to be, the UK won't be making its own drugs (designing, yes, making, no) just because it did in the past, the US won't be making computer chips just because it did in the past. There being a profit to be made isn't enough.

> You are giving far too much credit to what is on the face of it a broken system.

The system may be broken but fixing it takes more than a wave of the hand.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#437

Post by NotSwift » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 9:57 AM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #87

tayo42 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, yeah I only ever get a the little honey bear ones lol, but the big jars at farmers markets look interesting but they're always huge and I almost never use honey

As long as they're airtight they stay good for years. Some local producers sell small jars too. I mostly sell pint jars (1.4 lbs). I will probably switch to standard 1 lb jars soon.

Honey stays good for an amazing time. It is due to two things. It is mainly sugar, which means that it has a high osmotic pressure which kills other organisms like bacteria and fungi. The bees make their own antibiotics to fight of infections and some of these are present in their honey as well.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#438

Post by ohashi » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 10:12 AM UTC

I hope they take a look at VeriSign's monopoly power over .com/.net. We saw how dangerously close .ORG got to being turned into a rent seeking tax on non profits. .COM/.NET are a licensed rent seeking monopoly with increasing prices and decreasing costs to serve and no contract competition. Those contracts need to be made competitive, there are plenty of registry providers who can do it cheaper and VeriSign as a company exists because of those no-compete contracts.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#439

Post by snarfy » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 10:18 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #301

hyperhopper wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also a third issue: The high cost of medicines that are low cost to produce, and are sold at low cost elsewhere

This one is particularly prickly because the high cost paid in the US funds medical R&D and extremely expensive clinical trials which other countries are free riding on by imposing price controls. We still need to fund the R&D and clinical trials (unless they could be made less expensive somehow), so the most obvious solution would be to have other countries pay their fair share so the US could stop subsidizing every…

I was under the impression a large amount of medical R&D is paid for by taxes and done by university students. We pay for it and private industry benefits.

Re: Biden launches action on "Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Ag" – can it be real?

#440

Post by mft_ » Mon, Jul 12, 2021, 10:23 AM UTC

andyferris wrote: post #349

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one is particularly prickly because the high cost paid in the US funds medical R&D and extremely expensive clinical trials which other countries are free riding on by imposing price controls. We still need to fund the R&D and clinical trials (unless they could be made less expensive somehow), so the most obvious solution would be to have other countries pay their fair share so the US could stop subsidizing every…

Europe does drug R&D and still manages to sell their drugs at a reasonable price to sick people (generally because their governments utilize their buying power for the good of their citizens). It seems to me that US people have been sold FUD by there own pharma companies, if I’m honest.

In the context of this discussion, ‘Europe’ doesn’t do ‘R&D’.

Biotech/Pharma are international. Irrespective of the home location of the organisation, virtually every drug trial from phase I onwards will be run in multiple countries. Further, virtually every drug found to work and filed with regulators for a license, will be filed internationally: Europe (EMA), US (FDA), and a whole host of smaller independent country regulators: Japan, Australia, Switzerland, etc.

So within the overall business model of a given company, there’s no link between the countries in which research is performed, and the prices ultimately set in those countries.

Drugs are more expensive in the US simply because there aren’t any pricing controls (beyond maybe some bargaining by providers; I can only assume this is because of the power of lobbying over the political process in the US). Drugs are cheaper where there’s an established process for determining or controlling prices.