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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCancer Doctors Protest 'Astronomical' Drug Costs
Charging high prices for drugs cancer patients need to survive is like profiteering from a natural disaster by jacking up prices for food and other necessities, leading cancer doctors and researchers from around the world contend in a new paper published in Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology.
Of 12 new cancer drugs that received FDA approval last year, 11 of them cost in excess of $100,000 a yearprices that the specialists attack as astronomical, unsustainable, and maybe even immoral. Whats more, only three of these drugs were found to improve patient survival rates and of these, two only increased it by less than two months, according to the Washington Post.
Advocating for lower drug prices is a necessity to save the lives of patients, say the specialists who wrote the paper, who specialize in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), but emphasize that sky-high drug costs affect patients with many types of cancer.
http://health.yahoo.net/experts/dayinhealth/cancer-doctors-protest-astronomical-drug-costs
still_one
(92,421 posts)associated with that. The pharmaceutical companies pay for those costs. The question is what is the real cost to recoup that, plus make a reasonable profit?
Jonas Salk who developed the polio vaccine, refused to patent his vaccine. He refused to let something to help billions around the world not be given access to the vaccine because of cost. A true humanitarian.
In order for this to happen today, it would take the government to provide a significant proportion of the funding. I suspect that if the trillions that were wasted on the wars we had were instead used to pursue such research, tremendous advances would be made at affordable prices.
Due the politics that exist today, I doubt very much it will happen in the near future, though Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical company did donate Gleevec to any person who could not afford it, however, that also created issues:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/05/business/drug-maker-s-vow-to-donate-cancer-medicine-falls-short.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
http://www.novartis.com/newsroom/media-releases/en/2013/1689290.shtml
Another reason why the government should help fund development of these pharmaceuticals is because many of the the anti-cancer drugs are not a cure, but a necessary path to understanding and knowledge, where an actual vaccine or cure would result
Promethean
(468 posts)Everybody knows they are not looking for actual cures. Not when they can sell treatments for the amounts in the OP. I'd even be willing to bet everything I own and will earn for the rest of my life that if they did stumble on a real cure they would destroy it immediately and suppress any and all knowledge that such a thing was discovered.
Kolesar
(31,182 posts)Enjoy the anonymity of an internet message board.
I suppose you do actually tell things like that to people you meet who have the misfortune of being too embarrassed by the situation to make you lose face.
still_one
(92,421 posts)LiberalAndProud
(12,799 posts)I've heard this argument. I don't find it convincing.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)the postpone treatments/stop treatments, and die quicker..
The more SS collectors who die sooner than otherwise, the more profit to fatcats at the top.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)"Charging high prices for drugs cancer patients need to survive is like profiteering from a natural disaster...."
"Of 12 new cancer drugs that received FDA approval last year, 11 of them cost in excess of $100,000 a yearprices that the specialists attack as astronomical, unsustainable, and maybe even immoral. Whats more, only three of these drugs were found to improve patient survival rates and of these, two only increased it by less than two months, according to the Washington Post."
datasuspect
(26,591 posts)EVERYTHING IN MODERN LIFE IS A RACKET DESIGNED TO RIP YOU OFF AND FUCK YOU OVER
then the outrage simply eases out of your body.
then you can go to tend your own garden.
your fellow Uhhhhhmerican is too stupid and brainwashed to care about REAL change. Not marketing slogan change, but blood and guts usurpation of the bribery machine.
it will never happen.
just get over it. you're on your own. if you can still see truth, you're a rare bird. turn back to nature and your family, become the custodian of the fire of truth so that it won't disappear from the earth, turn away from machines, turn away from the stupid.
tend your own garden.
there's nothing anyone can do about it until the entire system collapses.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
jsr
(7,712 posts)The whole damn oncology business sucks.
Laelth
(32,017 posts)The whole medical/insurance industry is engaged in profiteering. They profit from the sickness and misery of others.
While I am pleased that these doctors are standing up for a little economic justice, it's rather ironic that they act like this is a new phenomenon. It's not.
-Laelth
Wednesdays
(17,412 posts)Gee, I wonder if there are any here on DU?
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)4 pills per day, 120 of them per month - the price is astronomical. I have very good insurance and so I'm only putting up a co-pay of $80 for a month's supply but for those who don't enjoy that sort of coverage the only choice open to them is to go over-seas for a cheaper price. I have seen the pills for sale as low as $5,200 for a month's supply, but that is if they are bought from India and there is a big problem with counterfeits coming from there. Next in line price wise is Israel, where they can be had for just under $7,000 per month, and my wife found them for sale someplace domestically for slightly over $14,000 per month. Its just insane.
Before these pills I was in normal Chemotherapy, actually my second go at it. The first Chemo treatment I went through was ineffective. The second one was working but I hit my lifetime limit of how much of the stuff they could put in me and so we had to stop. Those treatments were costing $25,000 once very three weeks. As it turns out my death will not be an inexpensive affair.
tallahasseedem
(6,716 posts)take an $750 injection a day for the next 30 days. This person is out of money, living off Social Security, it absolutely pains me.