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This pill used to cost me 10c/pill, now it's $5/pill. I take it 3x day.

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Re: This pill used to cost me 10c/pill, now it's $5/pill. I take it 3x day.

#71

Post by notahacker »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #65
notahacker wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You abuse it, you lose it" actually sounds like a pretty good rule of thumb for enforcement of patent law...

Where "abuse" is defined by fiat, rather than clear apriori regulations? What happened to the rule of law?

This is a situation where inconsistent enforcement of law actually works to the consumer's advantage in reducing the number of edge cases where companies make speculative bets on exploiting weaknesses in the formal certification process. Especially with the FDA carefully trying to avoid setting any precendent.

It would be difficult to draft a definition of "abuse" that didn't encompass raising cost of a drug a hundredfold above the market rate in order to recoup costs invested not in research, but in acquiring the company that achieved FDA certification (mostly using existing NIH funded research) for an already widely-available treatment.

Re: This pill used to cost me 10c/pill, now it's $5/pill. I take it 3x day.

#72

Post by WalterBright »

protomyth wrote: post #69
WalterBright wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way to deal with it is to allow legal consenting adults to take any drugs they want to - provided they sign a contract saying they understand the drug is not approved by the FDA. But if a drug is approved by the FDA, then the drug company is inured against liability for that drug.

The FDA already has rules to allow patients to take drugs being tested if they are on death's door (cannot remember the terminology or exact rule). Drug companies should not have to worry about lawsuits unless they knowing let a dangerous drug on the market, but people and doctors ignore warnings and nothing is totally safe for everyone.

If you've got a chronic/debilitating/painful illness, as long as you're not about to drop dead, no soup for you? I can't see how that is a compassionate, just, or rational policy.

Re: This pill used to cost me 10c/pill, now it's $5/pill. I take it 3x day.

#73

Post by shpxnvz »

alexqgb wrote: post #67
shpxnvz wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seemed pretty clear that in addition to the FDA he was attacking the company for behaving like a profit seeking entity (which it, of course, is). He questioned whether it is "ok" for them to charge the particular price they wanted and questioned how many homes the CEO should be able to own while there are still suffering people in the world. We can argue that this particular bit of regulation is wonderful or evil…

Relentless profit-seeking tendencies combined with monopolies are fundamentally toxic. Which is why we (generally) outlaw monopolies. The ones we do grant have (in theory) provisions that favor the public interest. In other words, if your business operates a monopoly granted by the state, you DO have a special set of legal, moral, and ethical obligations that don't apply to less privileged organizations. If a protect…

In other words, if your business operates a monopoly granted by the state, you DO have a special set of legal, moral, and ethical obligations that don't apply to less privileged organizations.

If there were such obligations, they would be made specific in the regulation. It's pointless to set the rules for the game and then get upset when they are followed. I personally find the price gouging distasteful as well, but those are my ethical beliefs and they in no way compel the behavior of others.

Hence my claim that the regulations should be the subject of the discussion, not whether some particular company is acting in accordance with our personal views.

Re: This pill used to cost me 10c/pill, now it's $5/pill. I take it 3x day.

#75

Post by mukyu »

ctdonath wrote: post #47
roel_v wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was my understanding from the article that originally there were several versions of the drug, then something changed (the author seemed to blame the FDA) after which there was only 1 left, and then there was a price hike. Now it's quite possible that I'm wrong - what was the cheap version that the author was taking before then? Wasn't it a product of a competitor? And if so, why isn't it available any more?

Whatever the prior sources (IIRC, pharmacists could just whip up a batch), making it was cheap, legal, and unrestricted due to grandfathering. FDA wanted to regulate it, and granted someone exclusive rights to achieve it. It's not available now because the FDA wanted certain tests done which hadn't been. No company did the tests because it wasn't worth their time/money to do so. The FDA _made_ it worth someone's time…

It was not legal to make these drugs. However, the FDA did not want to suddenly get rid of drugs people were already taking so focused their efforts on drugs that they thought were harmful first.

Drug testing is designed to prevent actually harm. With the manufacturer's plan it seems that the only people that will have to pay significantly more make over $100k/yr and probably have it covered under their health insurance anyways.

Re: This pill used to cost me 10c/pill, now it's $5/pill. I take it 3x day.

#76

Post by protomyth »

WalterBright wrote: post #72
protomyth wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FDA already has rules to allow patients to take drugs being tested if they are on death's door (cannot remember the terminology or exact rule). Drug companies should not have to worry about lawsuits unless they knowing let a dangerous drug on the market, but people and doctors ignore warnings and nothing is totally safe for everyone.

If you've got a chronic/debilitating/painful illness, as long as you're not about to drop dead, no soup for you? I can't see how that is a compassionate, just, or rational policy.

With the current court system, it is about as good as it gets. Contracts absolving other parties of responsibility don't hold up in court. Heck, take a look at all the problems around Accutane. If you take it, you are told and sign forms stating it can cause depression. Well, it looks like that won't be good enough. People's love of punishing the big even companies have doomed those that suffer more than the revenge has ever been worth.
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