Even more
things which make me go "Huh?"
Saturday
morning, 7:30 am news. A man's pet Emu was scared by a dog and ran away. It took
a significant number of bodies and time to recapture the bird. Now the real
question: Why the hell would someone keep a 125 pound, 5 1/2 foot tall, "can kick you to death" flightless
bird in an urban setting? The eggs are
relatively inedible, the bird has a brain about the size of its eyeball, and is
rated by breeders as being "dumber than a turkey!" In fact,
Smithsonian recently pronounced the Emu as (officially, I guess) the
"dumbest bird in the world," That's a really stupid bird and, it
seems to me, a reasonably poor choice
for a pet.
Nest question.
here's a hypothetical scenario. President George W. Bush, while President, went
to Africa several times. At least twice, African heads of state donated various
sums in kind or in gifts to the President which he gratefully accepted and then
regifted to non-profit causes. Was anybody irate about this? Woodrow Wilson
received (and kept) a limousine. Ronald Reagan received , kept and, after
leaving the White House, lived in, a
$2.5 million house in Bel Air, CA.
Where's the outrage?
On the other
hand, Hillary Clinton, while serving as Secretary of State, visited
Morocco, a friendly and critical ally
in Northern Africa, and gave a
speech. The King, richer than God, as a symbol of good relations between our nations, gave a large monetary gift - not to her, not
to her family, but to a charitable
foundation which is one of the most highly vetted and respected charities in America, far more productive and
efficient than the Red Cross, or even St. Jude's Children's Hospital. The Clinton Foundation sponsors programs in
public health, economic development, women’s rights and climate change. Its work has been praised, including efforts
to lower the price of AIDS medication and distribute it to children. The
foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative have helped more than 435 million
people in 180 countries. The secretary herself, and her husband, also gave over
$1 million in each of several years to this charity, while receiving absolutely
zero compensation whatsoever, from it.
Donald Trump is outraged. It makes my
head hurt.
As a footnote,
Trump has actively solicited contributions to his own charitable
foundation, from private citizens and
corporations as well. Recent reporting on the Trump Foundation, has centered on Mr. Trump’s repeated use of foundation
money to make donations that simultaneously helped him solve a personal or
business problem. A recent Florida lawsuit
was eventually settled with Mr. Trump agreeing to donate $100,000 to
charity, but the donation came from the Trump Foundation instead of Mr. Trump
himself. Using charity money to satisfy a personal lawsuit is typically
considered to be self-dealing, an illegal use of nonprofit foundation funds. In
more recent years, it appears that the major beneficiary of the Trump
Foundation has been....Trump! Mr. Trump’s foundation does not show up on the
charity registers in many states,
because the foundation has,
numerous times, not complied with
non-profit regulations. Again, it makes my head hurt.
"Be an
energy voter - it's not a partisan issue",
proclaims a recent commercial featuring a cast of paid actors portraying
the spectrum of American citizens. Of
course, it absolutely is a partisan issue, and all you need to do to prove it
is look at the energy barons in America and where their political support lies.
Start with the Koch Brothers, Republican mega donors. Their $9.250,000 in lobbying alone, is a good indicator. While
you're beginning to believe that they really care about you, consider this:
Two of the
world's largest energy companies, Royal Dutch/Shell and BP, are majority owned
and controlled outside the US. One wonders how much Congressional
"bang" they get for their $7.43 million bucks in direct lobbying? What we
do know is that energy lobbying contributions show a 30 to 1 ratio in favor of
fossil fuels (you know, CO2, acid rain, global warming and all that stuff
?) Collectively, oil and gas alone fed
the coffers of all Congressional
lobbying recipients a staggering $1.8 billion! Statistically, about 70% of Petroleum/ gas industry lobbying goes to Republicans. As
unbalanced as that seems, it pales next
to mining (coal) interests, in which case over
90% of lobbying donations ("bribes" carries such an unpleasant
connotation, doesn't it?) go to Republicans.
If you still believe "being an energy voter" isn't partisan, I
can't help you.
In a somewhat
related vein, at least conceptually, candidates Clinton and Sanders both have
made repeated calls for modifying a 2006
Bush administration "gift" to the Pharma industry. To get the
Medicare part D act passed, over rather strenuous objection by the Big Pharma industry, the bill was altered to include a provision that
Medicare would never negotiate drug prices. Understand, this means that while
Insurance companies and The Veteran's Administration can, and do, pay less for
drugs by negotiating with suppliers, Medicare costs (and the co-pays of
recipients) are set by Big Pharma with zero regard for anything but profit.
Let's reiterate, using a current example:
Mylan Pharmaceuticals' recent 500% price hike to ($600) of its patented
"Epi-pen" was met with significant outrage, to the point that Mylan
lowered the price (with a coupon issued by them) to "only" $300. Of course in the UK, Mylan sells the
identical item (at a profit) for about $69. The Veteran's administration also
pays less, because they are able to negotiate price, as do major US health insurers - except Medicare. So who
gets hurt? To some degree, all users do, since the actual value of the drug in
an Epi-pen is less than $2.00! The sad
part is that those hurt worst are those least able to afford it. Those with
health insurance will undoubtedly see an increase in their co-pay but, if they
can afford insurance in the first place, will probably be all right. However,
those without insurance or on Medicare will pay full price, and those with Part
D will still pay a larger co-pay based on the full retail drug cost.
Of course, as an
industry, Big Pharma fights to preserve
their special status, which is: As an
industry which manufactures products which, for some consumers aren't
"optional" but essential to survival, they remain largely unregulated
in the marketplace. This is different from most other manufacturers and
industries, whose product consumers can
choose to use (or not). Being unable to afford new Basketball shoes is,
perhaps, annoying. Being unable to afford a drug which makes the difference
between life and death is possibly fatal.
How much does
it cost to "buy" this protection and unique privilege by stopping
adverse legislation? Here's the
situation as it is today: Large pharmaceutical firms are some of the
most profitable companies in the world, and they spend a great deal money on, besides advertising and hefty
salaries for rich kid CEOs, lobbying Congress to stay that way. While they would like for public perception
to be that they reinvest most of these obscene profits on Research and
Development, and some profits are reinvested
to fund research and clinical trials, far more is now spent annually, by the biggest names in the business on
media advertising. Hundreds of millions of dollars are also spent on political
operations ("lobbying") every year.
The government has long provided the pharmaceutical industry with premium patent protections while leaving drug
pricing up to the whims of the market. We, as
consumers in the United States, now pay some of the highest prices in
the world for many life-saving drugs. Recent data shows
that critical cancer medicines, for example, cost as much as 600 times
more in the United States than other countries. The industry has a clear
interest in maintaining the political status quo, and lobbying is the vehicle.
In total, most recently compiled lobbying expenditures for the Pharma and
medical supply industries exceed $125
million over the last fiscal year! That, however is relatively minor when
compared to the $5 billion spent on advertising by Pharma alone.
Although the
pharmaceutical industry justifies routine overcharging by pointing to the huge,
and, admittedly uncertain, costs of
research, the truth is that the government has historically taken, mainly
through the efforts and auspices of the National Institute of Health, and
continues to take, the greatest risks, and funds those risks with your and my tax
dollars . Additional government grants flow to public and private university efforts as well.
Beginning in
the 1930s, the NIH has invested close to $900 billion in the basic and applied
research that formed both the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors, with
private companies only getting seriously into the biotech game in the 1980s.
Big Pharma, while of course contributing to innovation, has increasingly begun
to back away from the high-risk side of
research and development, often letting small biotech companies and the NIH do
most of the hard work. In fact, about
75% of so-called new molecular entities with priority rating (the most
innovative drugs with the most promise) can be traced to NIH funding, while
companies spend more on "me too" drugs (slight variations of existing
ones.)
Although the
1980 Bayh-Dole Act allowed publicly funded research to be patented, to
facilitate commercialization, and in return allowed price caps, successive administrations, worried about
being seen to intervene in the free market, have never capped the price of even
one drug!
Finally,
because I'm getting tired of typing, allow me one glaring example of just how
bad we're being ripped off while Pharma
profits soar:
We've all seen
the TV ads for the "new, breakthrough" drug Harvoni, which is the
first to actually cure Hepatitis "C".
Gilead Science, which retails the drug, didn't actually develop it! They purchased the rights to the
drug (actually generically named
sofosbuvir) and patented it in the US.
Here is the even more amazing reality: sofosbuvir was developed under
the leadership of Prof. Raymond Schinazi, a
professor of biochemistry at Emory University. The U.S. Government
heavily funded Prof. Schinazi’s research, with major grants from the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) and support from the Veterans Administration. Get this right. We (taxpayers) funded much of
this drug's R&D cost. Gilead's cost was a combination of clinical trials
expense and profit paid to the startup company that Dr. Schinazi formed to sell
his brainchild. Gilead paid about $11
billion to purchase the drug, of which $440 million went to the good doctor. In
its first 10 months of sales, Harvoni recovered
Gilead's entire investment! Their patent protection will allow them to do so
until 2028. Understand, this means somewhere around 50,000% profit annually on Harvoni for the
next 12 years.
According to researchers in the UK, the
actual production costs of Sovaldi
(retail name in the UK and Europe) for the 12-week course is in the
range of $68-$136. In fact, generic sofosbuvir is currently being marketed in
India at $300 per treatment course, after India told Gilead to kiss their ass
when they (Gilead) tried to patent it in India. In other words, the U.S.
price-cost markup is roughly 1,000-to-1! So, how can Gilead Science charge
$84,000 for a drug that costs less than $300 to produce? Well, for
starters, Gilead’s patent on sofosbuvir
runs until 2028, giving it a monopoly in the U.S. market. Second, a range of
Federal and state government programs
will cover the $84,000 for a sizeable number of patients. For those not
covered by government programs, some will be covered by private insurance, a
few will pay out of pocket, and still others will die because they lack
coverage and can’t afford the treatment.
And of course that pesky law prohibiting Medicare from negotiating
price.
Angry yet?
