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anti-vaccine crowd or not, I just want the truth.. and I think I can people can handle the truth.
Why is there any need for false information from Pharma and the Government ? ?????????????? What do they have to hide?
It is all about money. That is what they are hiding. They WANT you to get sick. it fuels the "healthcare" industry and the big pharmas, that the politicians are all getting very rich from, via the stock Xchange. Very good documentation on this topic. Infowars.com
Did you know that congress exempted themselves from "insider trading rules?" Go read up on Feinstein and her husband or Pelosi. Obama and Blagojevich were selling or trying to sell cheap knock off drugs to the State of Ill at taxpayer expense by brokering a deal with a Canadian pharma company. Google it. The info may still be on line.
Never in history did America EVER let sick people in. Today infectious people are let in by this government with the obvious results. It does not take a genius to figure out what the administration is doing. Ever notice how middle class politicians at the end of their carreer are filthy rich? Connect the dots.
So is the purpose of this thread to discuss the impropriety Mereck and/or Big Pharma, or a thinly veiled attempt to sway people away from vaccinating?
It’s all about the drug industry and their failure to be honest with the people and the government. It’s bad enough that they are dishonest and worse with the fees they charge for their meds sold in the US. Honesty isn’t difficult if you’re a moral corporation or drug manufacture.
Aw, man! And here I thought someone was finally going to blow the lid off the Italian cheese cartel!
Quote:
Originally Posted by WithDisp
Man the subject said BIG PARMA-
I thought I was gettin' a big ol Chicken Parm.
Well what’s wrong, the title was 95% accurate …………………… not much different than the information provided by Mereck to the public and the government…………… YOU got the message and that's what was important.
before this gets shut down for being cheesey......as a big pharma investor, the price of the drug may need to be compared to the cost of a treatment program without the drug. New hep C drugs are an example of cost / benefit, an 80k price for a regime beats a 500k liver transplant or death. Development costs are a factor in pricing. It can take years to get to market and millions of dollars The reality is we have a for profit healthcare and i see little chance of change anytime soon. The point is well taken that data is manipulated and there is too much pressure for results for stock performance. Yes, we do need oversight, these guys are not ready for self regulating. Another thread could be a discussion of dollars wasted on advertising to create demand. I'm sure I am not the one to try to legislate morality. (I did say I invest in some of these egomaniacs)
before this gets shut down for being cheesey......as a big pharma investor, the price of the drug may need to be compared to the cost of a treatment program without the drug. New hep C drugs are an example of cost / benefit, an 80k price for a regime beats a 500k liver transplant or death. Development costs are a factor in pricing. It can take years to get to market and millions of dollars The reality is we have a for profit healthcare and i see little chance of change anytime soon. The point is well taken that data is manipulated and there is too much pressure for results for stock performance. Yes, we do need oversight, these guys are not ready for self regulating. Another thread could be a discussion of dollars wasted on advertising to create demand. I'm sure I am not the one to try to legislate morality. (I did say I invest in some of these egomaniacs)
I totally agree about direct to consumer advertising.
No one wants to pay for new drugs until it's themselves or someone close to them who needs the medication.
Factored into the cost is the money spent on research that goes nowhere, too. A small percentage of the compounds that enter the R & D pipeline ever make it to the doc's prescription pad.
I totally agree about direct to consumer advertising.
No one wants to pay for new drugs until it's themselves or someone close to them who needs the medication.
Factored into the cost is the money spent on research that goes nowhere, too. A small percentage of the compounds that enter the R & D pipeline ever make it to the doc's prescription pad.
A lot of people don't like DTC. Realistically, though it can't be prohibited through because even commercial speech (advertising) enjoys protection under the First Amendment. The simple way to put it is that unless the advertising is fraudulent or misleading that you can't stop it.
I think there is a perception in this country that pharmaceutical companies have segmented the prescription drug market and have chosen America as the market where they can get away with charging the most. I don't object to Americans paying our share of R&D costs, but other countries ought to have to do the same.
I've also heard it suggested that FDA criteria for approving new drugs ought to be more restrictive. Specifically, a third criteria ought to be added to "safe and effective" as a prerequisite to approval. The third criteria would "better than other similar drugs already on the market".
I suspect the biggest profit center for most of the companies are medications for chronic illnesses. My wife pays veritable fortunes for diabetes supplies (even after benefiting from a good health insurance plan). I pay about $300 a month for a name brand medication for acid reflux that I insist on purchasing because the generic doesn't work as well, no matter what it is alleged to do.
I've often wondered if our country ought to simply regulate pharmaceutical products the way we do public utilities. In other words, allow them to earn a "reasonable rate of return", but cap prices beyond that point.
A lot of people don't like DTC. Realistically, though it can't be prohibited through because even commercial speech (advertising) enjoys protection under the First Amendment. The simple way to put it is that unless the advertising is fraudulent or misleading that you can't stop it.
I think there is a perception in this country that pharmaceutical companies have segmented the prescription drug market and have chosen America as the market where they can get away with charging the most. I don't object to Americans paying our share of R&D costs, but other countries ought to have to do the same.
I've also heard it suggested that FDA criteria for approving new drugs ought to be more restrictive. Specifically, a third criteria ought to be added to "safe and effective" as a prerequisite to approval. The third criteria would "better than other similar drugs already on the market".
I suspect the biggest profit center for most of the companies are medications for chronic illnesses. My wife pays veritable fortunes for diabetes supplies (even after benefiting from a good health insurance plan). I pay about $300 a month for a name brand medication for acid reflux that I insist on purchasing because the generic doesn't work as well, no matter what it is alleged to do.
I've often wondered if our country ought to simply regulate pharmaceutical products the way we do public utilities. In other words, allow them to earn a "reasonable rate of return", but cap prices beyond that point.
Once upon a time marketing in the medical sector was frowned upon. That was an offshoot of the days of snake oil, and advertising was thought to be unethical if not illegal. In some ways, that was, I think, a kinder, gentler era. For example, if a new surgical procedure was developed, someone in the community would go learn it and come back and teach every surgeon in the town how to do it, even if the practices were separate. Now, everyone wants to be the first to have something new to sell because doctors are expected to compete with one another. Competition is probably good when we are talking about retail sales and some services, but it has done nothing to help control the cost of medical care, which is propelled in large part by technology.
I agree that the rest of the world should have to share R & D costs. The devil is in the details, though. How do you decide what a country pays, and who decides where the money is spent?
As far as "better than similar drugs already on the market" is concerned, I think the problem is defining "better". A new drug may be just as effective as an old one but with fewer doses per day or less likely to cause a specific side effect. It's hard to remember to take regular meds three times a day.
Drugs as a public utility? That's an interesting idea, and one I have not seen before. The "reasonable rate of return" would have to be high enough that there would be an incentive to explore new avenues of research, though.
To get back to Merck, I still think it is wrong to judge a drug on the merits of what the corporate dudes are doing rather than the benefits and risks of the drug itself - and there is plenty of non-industry funded research to allow us to do that.
I am old enough that my childhood happened before there were as many vaccines as there are now. I HAD measles (both kinds), chicken pox (the worst), and mumps. So did my siblings and we missed weeks of school in multiple years being quarantined for these illnesses ... in addition to the fact that being so sick when you are just a kid is terrible. I never had whooping cough or polio, but I know people who had those diseases, too. I can vividly remember how joyful my parents were when there was a polio vaccine we could get. Doctors brought the vaccine to a school gym in my town. My parents took us there and we waited in line for long time to be vaccinated. Drs. Salk and Sabin were heroes to my parents generation.
I don't have children but my siblings have multiples. All of my nieces and nephews are vaccinated. Guess what? No diseases, no side effects from the vaccines. Autism is a terrible thing but I know full well there were kids in my school who were autistic when I was a child — there just wasn't a name for it back then. And they couldn't have gotten that way from vaccines since they weren't vaccinated.
As for the flu, I worked for 18 years for a Fortune 100 corporation. They gave all of us employees free flu shots and we were expected to have a doctor's written excuse to be exempted. The first year I stopped working there, I failed to get a shot and I got the flu. That was the very last time I didn't get a shot. I used to hear the stories that my paternal grandmother lost her husband and two of her four children to the flu epidemic of 1918. I couldn't imagine flu being bad enough to kill people until I had it that year.
I'm sure these drugs do cause some trouble for some people ... all of us are very different and have uniquenesses about our bodies. But I truly believe vaccines and flu shots have saved millions of lives and saved hundreds of millions of children worldwide from bad suffering. It's not an excuse for huge corporations to take financial advantage of We the People. But I refuse to believe they are intentionally careless about killing us.
Whenever I see/hear someone use the words "big pharma" it's a pretty good indicator to disregard anything that comes next.
There are tons of different individuals and companies in the pharmaceuticals industry, and they are in no way, shape or form a hive mind.
These idiots rail against clinically proven drugs, then pop untested herbal pills that aren't even required to contain what it says on the bottle.
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