More on the Sickness Industrial Complex

Following up on the costs of drugs (assuming there are no other alternatives to them) and the waste and inefficiency of the market mentioned in the previous blog posting, Denis Drew sent us this response. And lets not forget that the US with about 6% of the world's population consumes about 60% of the world's psychiatric drugs. Take the profit out of the health care system. RM

 From Denis Drew

Did Gilead's new Hepatitis drug Epclusa truly take $22.5 TRILLION to research?

At $75,000 a treatment, Epclusa, Gilead's new Hepatitis drug which miraculously cures all forms of Hepatitis, A, B, C, D, E, could cost about $500 billion to treat all 7 million Americans afflicted from some form of Hepatitis. Which would cost Gilead in the neighborhood of $1 billion to manufacture (figuring about $150 each for 7 million US patients -- if same as Hep C drug Sovaldi -- don’t have exact population figures in front of me but that that is what I call “close enough.”)

http://www.marinij.com/article/NO/20160710/FEATURES/160719994

To justify that cost by the need to support research Gilead would have us believe they and others spend in the neighborhood of $499 billion on research on the average for each new drug that successfully comes to market.

But wait; there’s more — as the Popeil TV ads used to say.

Worldwide there are more like 300 million with chronic Hepatitis. Let’s see: 300 million X $75,000 = $22.5 trillion (with a "t") supposedly needed for research on average to bring one new drug (minus the 1/5 of one percent manufacturing costs -- let's be fair)?

Now I understand that that drugs are cheaper in third world countries as the graphic shows but that means that either a government foots the bill and subsidizes the drug which means handing public funds over to big Pharma or people die because they can't afford it.

Late note: "research" on Manhattan Project came to $27 billion (today's dollars).