Drug price increases 5000%

[taniaaust1]

The scary thing is that something like that could happen to us. Just imagine if a drug was invented which cured us and if they went and did that.

 

[Denise]

The price increase has been changed. They will only be charging twice the previous amount. (Gee! What an ingenious way to get people to accept doubling the price of their med. sarcasm)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/business/big-price-increase-for-tb-drug-is-rescinded.html?_r=0

 

[RL_sparky]

If the Fluge & Mella prove that an older drug like Cyclophosphamide is successful in treating ME/CFS then there is a good chance will watch the price of that drug rise to an outrageous level also.

 

[sarah darwins]

I really believe there's a special place waiting for people who are doing stuff like that to their fellow mankind.

Let's hope so. And a special place within that special place for the ones who laugh while they're doing it. In that well known Enron movie, the bit that got me was when the Enron traders were caught on tape killing themselves laughing as they shut down the power around CA, like they were playing a computer game, and talking about how much they would make from it. I don't doubt these people extorting money from the sick are every bit as pleased with themselves.

 

[Violeta]

if a drug was invented which cured us

if a drug was invented>>>>>that cured us

An oxymoron, that would cut profits considerably.

 

[Sushi]

This thread is locked pending moderation review.

 

[Undisclosed]

This thread has been re-opened. Any rule breaches have been removed. Thank you.

 

[dannybex]

Whois Martin Shkreli? The press really didn't dig deep enought. He a 32-year-old venture capitalist, ex hedge fund manager. Shkreli was fired by Retrophin's Board with Stephen Aselage being named as his replacement in September 2014. Retrophin filed a $65 million dollar lawsuit against Shkreli in August 2015, claiming he breached his duty of loyalty to the biopharmaceutical company in a long-running dispute over his use of company funds.

Here's the sociopath, trying to justify his actions:

 

[JPV]

The scary thing is that something like that could happen to us. Just imagine if a drug was invented which cured us and if they went and did that.

I'm not really convinced that Ampligen is a cure ME/CFS but what you're talking about has already happened...

267% Price Increase for Ampligen

I have been a study participant for over three years. Last night, I learned through ME Action’s blog (http://www.meaction.net/2015/08/10/ampligen-price-increases-substantially-available-soon-in-europe/) that the price of the drug will go up 267%, from $15,600 to $41,600 per year, effective immediately as of July 24, 2015. Because it has not been approved by the FDA, the cost of the drug is currently not covered by private insurance or Medicare/Medicaid. Patients pay the entire cost out of pocket. Nevertheless, I have not received any notification from HEB of this extraordinary price increase.

 

[Denise]

fwiw - Hemispherix now says -
"The Patient Assistance Program will allow the patients currently on the open-label treatment protocol to continue to receive the drug, through March 2016, at the cost-recovery rate in effect when they entered the study."
http://www.streetinsider.com/Corpor...mpligen+AMP-511+in+CFS+Patients/10900192.html

I glanced at HEB's site but see no info on this assistance program.
http://www.hemispherx.net/

 

[AaroninOregon]

There are generics of the drug available in the UK and India, from what I understand.

My question is are insurance companies really going to pay this ridiculous price for this drug? I assume that has to be his angle as I doubt most HIV/AIDS patients can afford this out of pocket cost.

 

[JPV]

My question is are insurance companies really going to pay this ridiculous price for this drug?

Insurance companies and the government get a discount.

 

[AaroninOregon]

Insurance companies and the government get a discount.

How much of a discount though? I would think that insurance would tell the manufacturer to get bent and patients would have to switch to a different drug.

 

[JPV]

How much of a discount though?

I don't know what the price difference is.

 

[Hip]

I watched the video and he looks and sounds like a sociopath to me.

That's exactly what I thought when I saw Martin Shkreli interviewed on TV. Although I'd put him down as more as a psychopath than a sociopath (Differences Between a Psychopath vs Sociopath | World of Psychology); but the two terms a very similar.


Shouldn't a properly organized society have a screening program for psychopaths put in place, such that psychopaths are prevented from holding influential or executive jobs, such corporate CEO?

I am sure there is a place for sociopaths and psychopaths in our society, but that place should not be at the head of a corporation, where a psychopath's lack of empathy and moral conscience, and inability to feel any guilt from their wrongdoing, may quickly turn that company into a predatory corporate monster.

If we have screening programs to detect drug use in company staff, then equally we should have a screening program at the board level of a company, in order to detect psychopaths, and prevent them from becoming board members.

The problem is that psychopaths have an affinity for high positions in the corporate ladder:

Robert Hare claims that the prevalence of psychopathic traits is higher in the business world than in the general population, reporting that while about 1% of the general population meet the clinical criteria for psychopathy, figures of around 3-4% have been cited for more senior positions in business.

Source: Psychopathy - Wikipedia

So given this affinity, there ought to be regulations put in place that prevents their ascent to responsible board positions.


Psychopaths are often very clever, experts in lying, deceit and feigning the response that people want to hear in order to manipulate people. So a psychopath may be capable of fooling any standard questionnaire tests that psychologists use for mental health diagnosis.

However, I understand that signs of psychopathy often appear on an MRI scan; so possibly with more research, an MRI or other brain scan may be developed to reliably diagnose psychopathy.

Imagine if such a screening system had been in place when the psychopathic Nazi Party were trying to gain power in Germany; it would have saved 60 million lives.

 

[sarah darwins]

@Hip ... I see one problem with your proposition — psychologists and psychiatrists would then get to run the world. And while there are undoubtedly some very fine, upstanding ones ...

 

[Hip]

@Hip ... I see one problem with your proposition — psychologists and psychiatrists would then get to run the world. And while there are undoubtedly some very fine, upstanding ones ...

I don't myself share the often expressed view on PR that psychologists and psychiatrists are the source of all the world's woes.

It's only a tiny group of psychiatrists (the Wessely school) that hold the erroneous views that ME/CFS is psychosomatic or somatoform disease. Yet because of the bad influence this tiny group has had on ME/CFS research, many members of this forum tar the whole psychiatric profession with the same brush.


This Wessely school group would have remained in obscurity, and would have had little or no influence over ME/CFS, had it not been for the actions of the disability insurance industry, who exploited the ideas of Wessely school to portray ME/CFS as an "all in the mind" psychological condition. This saved these insurance companies billions, as they then did not need to provide lifetime disability payments for ME/CFS patients.

The Wessely school take much of the blame, but the real source of the problem lies with the insurance corporates, and their very apparent lack of moral conscience.

It is the psychopathic tendencies of the insurance corporates that caused all our woes in the world of ME/CFS.

Which brings us back to the point that if we had a screening program that weeded out psychopaths at the corporate boardroom level, then even the horrible political problems of ME/CFS would likely not have occurred.

 

[Gingergrrl]

Shouldn't a properly organized society have a screening program for psychopaths put in place, such that psychopaths are prevented from holding influential or executive jobs, such corporate CEO?

This will never happen (at least not in the U.S.) and corporations want the top CEO to be someone who can make them the most money and do not care about the people they may be harming. The insurance companies, disability companies, and Big Pharma are filled with sociopaths b/c the average person with a conscience cannot do this kind of work day in and day out without having empathy for those they are harming.

I don't myself share the often expressed view on PR that psychologists and psychiatrists are the source of all the world's woes.

Thank you and I do not either and share your opinion on this one! (re: this particular statement, not re: who is allowed to run a company- just wanted to clarify in case what I said was confusing.)

 

[sarah darwins]

I don't myself share the often expressed view on PR that psychologists and psychiatrists are the source of all the world's woes.

Neither do I. But I still don't want them setting the criteria for who is allowed to run a company. Not a world I want to live in.

 

[Hip]

This will never happen (at least not in the U.S.) and corporations want the top CEO to be someone who can make them the most money and do not care about the people they may be harming.

Certainly it may not be in the interests of some corporations and their shareholders to ban psychopaths from the boardroom; but if such a far-sighted legislation were brought in by government, these corporates would have to follow the regulations. And I am sure that other more benign corporations that are not run by psychopaths would support it.

We might also do more research trying to figure out what causes psychopathy and diminished empathy. Perhaps in the future it will be treatable.

But I still don't want them setting the criteria for who is allowed to run a company.

I am not suggesting they should. I am just talking about removing psychopaths from the board room; or least from becoming CEO. Psychologists are not likely to know who has the most appropriate business skills to run a given company anyway; that's not their area.