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US Drugmaker Raises Price of Vitamins By More Than 800% (ft.com)
David Crow, reporting for the Financial Times: A US drugmaker is charging almost $300 for a bottle of prescription vitamins that can be bought online for less than $5, in the latest attempt at price gouging in the world's largest healthcare market. Avondale Pharmaceuticals raised the price of Niacor, a prescription-only version of niacin, by 809 per cent last month, taking a bottle of 100 tablets from $32.46 to $295 (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source), according to figures seen by the Financial Times. Although niacin, a type of vitamin B3, is available in over-the-counter forms for less than $5 per 100 tablets, some doctors still prefer to use the version approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat high cholesterol. Avondale, a secretive Alabama-based company, put the price of Niacor up shortly after acquiring the rights to the medicine in a so-called "buy-and-raise" deal -- a strategy made famous by Martin Shkreli, the disgraced biotech entrepreneur.
Goverment regulations cause this problem. Now that we are getting rid of NObamacare, this problem will go away. GUARANTEED.
Socialism is an easy fix for cases like this. In a socialist system this vitamin wouldn't even be available because it never would have been developed in the first place.
After a few dozen fall that way they'll start to catch on.
A US drugmaker is charging almost $300 for a bottle of prescription vitamins that can be bought online for less than $5, in the latest attempt at price gouging in the world's largest healthcare market.
Maybe they're buying them from Amazon and passing the savings on to you?
With corporate behavior like this, can anyone aside from Idget Pai really claim that Internet Providers won't create fast lanes the first chance they get?
There is a special place in hell for people like this. This isn't Capitalism this is unethical behavior, and exploitation pure and simple. EpiPen the sequel anyone?
Maybe CVS et. al. that brought affordable solutions to consumers could help but this just needs investigation.
EpiPen from 2016....
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/24/epipen-price-gouging-came-as-mylan-pulled-off-tax-inversion.html
Eat Vegemite.
"Although niacin, a type of vitamin B3, is available in over-the-counter forms for less than $5 per 100 tablets, some doctors still prefer to use the [overpriced prescription] version"
Translation: Doctors get a kickback from prescribing a vitamin. Clueless patients fill the prescription and send it to their insurance. Everybody loses except doctors and drug companies.
"approved by the US Food and Drug Administration"
Translation: FDA approved vitamins that other vitamin manufacturers either cant get approval for or have to spend a fortune to get.
So drug company gets a government monopoly on a vitamin that doctors are all too eager to prescribe to their patients for $300 a pop.
Doctors sell drugs marketed to them by drug companies.
Take an active role in your health care and question why you can't use a generic (which your insurance will most likely require) before you blindly pay for something.
"some doctors still prefer to use"
If your doctor does this, just find a new doctor. There is no good reason to put up with this.
I think you are giving CEO's too much credit on that score to be honest. CEO's don't normally "catch on" to anything.
Artificially expensive niacin is still better than statins, another cholesterol-lowering drug that is expensive and toxic for muscles (yes, heart included, that is the funny point)
taking a bottle of 100 tablets from $32.46 to $295 (Editor's note: the link may be paywalled;
Oh no! That jerk bought ft.com too!
There are plenty of foods that can give you the necessary vitamins. Eat some veggies and a reasonable amount of real beef/chicken or other fatty foods and balance it out in your diet with good amounts of other vegetables and fruits so it will be taken up by your body. Drink some wine and beer while you're at it too, within reason, you can get all this food and more within 15 minutes for a family of 4 with less what you'll spend for a single person at McDonalds.
Taking vitamin supplements is generally a waste since you're taking in more than your body needs, so most of it is simply excreted and your body needs other chemicals to even absorb them properly.
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CEO's are psychopaths. They don't "catch on" anymore than mafia bosses or drug lords catch on.
Why are CEO's psychopaths ? Because we want them that way. Shareholders want the best return on their investments, and manipulative, cut-throat, ruthless, heartless, soulless psychopaths are always more efficient than any other person who would take moral and ethical matters into consideration. So eventually, psychopath always end-up being the ones to keep their job.
That's an unavoidable side effect of corporatism.
A proletarian uprising will never happen in America. Partisanship and identity politics ensure that we'll all be far too busy fighting each other to focus our anger where it really belongs. Until BLM and the KKK can fight alongside each other against a common enemy, we're doomed to corporatocracy.
Plus, anything that disrupts the release schedule for the new iphone would never gain any serious popular support.
Couldn't they just add "Blockchain" to their name to reap crazy money?
Ever heard of Bayer ? Or Merck (I am speaking of the german one, not the US one It was a german company before the nationalization of 1915) one of the biggest pharmaceutical company ? And yes it does research all over the world, include Darmstadt near where I live. Whoever modded you insightful has no fucking clue and just acted out of the stupid US ideology that the word socialism is bad and an insult, when in reality the US practice some form of socialism, they jsut don't recognize it.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Yeah, but the government forces us all to subsidize the insurance industry (thanks to the Affordable Care Act), so should we be surprised that this happens? They have deep pockets thanks to all of us.
You better give a link, because googling vitam fraud (at least from my region/user) does not give the results you are speaking of. It does give results about *herbal* supplement being fraud having none of the annoucned ingredient, but nothing about vitamin product, frankly most of which are actually sold for a few euros here around in bottle of 30 or 40 (and the ingredient lsit is not advisory for those AFAIK), and are sold by the mainline producer, and since they are mostly mixing up different (relatively cheap with respect to the quantities) chemicals in different proportion rather than complicated processes, I would wager there is few if any intentional fraud. OTOH this is an interresting read : https://www.alternet.org/perso... (there are more traditional sources if you prefer them).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The evil assholes involved in this should be afraid to show themselves in public for fear of immediately being beaten to death by an angry mob.
Three Bump Stocks for the price of a bottle of Niacin.
Free market medical move #1 was ending the ACA (Obamacare) mandate which would financially lock most people into FDA monopoly medicines and often poorly performing maimstream medicine.
Many problems can be better addressed by the closer-to-natural-biochemistry of supplements, but first you need a little money leftover to start.
#freedumbs
More and more like Zuma's South Africa every day.. poor USAmericans..
Lowering cholesterol is easy, just quit drinking alcohol. Done deal. I had high triglycerides and LDL. Quit drinking alcohol for other health reasons and within 6 months my cholesterol was perfectly normal. Who would-a-thunk it. Oh, and the weight fell off after that. Lost 30lbs without even trying.
What would happen if a bunch of people posted comments to an FDA web page stating they believed their product was contaminated with a foreign substance?
Just so everybody knows the differences. Niacin performance varies with its dissolution and absorption rate.
"Instant release" can vary by tablet construction and meals. A typical aimpoint is 3000 mg per day in divided doses.
The longest, slowest, extended release forms can become toxic at high doses and should be removed from the market. It took makers a number of years to optimize the intermediate release forms for cutting cholesterol and minimizing the flush or initial burn in. The supplement Enduracin is, or used to be, considered the premier time release formulation, based on the research of Robert Kowalski. Typically 1500 mg per day, divided into 3 doses.
... more importantly, you are guaranteed it will have exactly the amount of niacin it says on the label.
If I have this right:
Actually, you're guaranteed that the company did tests that show that, if it is not beyond the expiration date and hasn't been improperly stored, the drug will have at least 95% of the activity it claims on the label (for the on-label applications).
That's a heck of a lot tighter than OTC vitamins (even absent fraud). But let's be careful about saying "exactly".
(Lots of drugs are still quite potent far beyond their labelled expiration dates, though you don't necessarily know HOW potent. The manufacturing-to-expiration time is often when the company decided the formulation had adequate shelf life and stopped paying for testing, rather than the point where the drug degraded enough that it was close to missing the potency requirements.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Sorry, you don't know s--- about vitamins. Specific forms, combinations and doses of vitamins and other nutrients can often do amazing things. Just that they are not extensively tested and documented like drugs on patent. The negavitamin types, often shills cloaked in regulatory or MD/RD authoritarian "science" views, actually seem to be the loudest and most dangerous from where I sit.
I will stipulate that there are massive propagandists on both sides.
***BE VERY CAREFUL*** !!!
There is Niacinamide and then there is Nicotinic Acid
Nicotinic acid is preferred in the treatment of high cholesterol levels while niacinamide is not preferred in this treatment. This is because since niacinamide is a derivative of niacin, the cholesterol lowering properties in niacinamide are inhibited
Nicotinic acid is also preferred in treating circulatory problems because of its effects on the blood vessels and the role it plays in lowering high cholesterol levels hence preventing hardening of the arteries
On the other hand, high Nicotinic acid doses can cause flushing a condition that causes blood vessels to widen
This makes the capillaries under the skin to expand to allow more blood to flow making the skin to become red and itchy
Niacinamide does not have the effect of skin flushing and that is why it is preferred over niacin in the treatment of pellagra, a condition that results due to lack of vitamin B3
In the USA vitamins etc are NOT REGULATED. Every attempt to even regulate to the point of just verifying the labels on the bottles ends up in a big political fight over alternative medicine. It's also not helped that those wanting regulations often ALSO want to kill off alternative medicine in various ways at the same time. The two issues are always conflated by BOTH SIDES so nothing is done.
PBS FRONTLINE just had a show on it in the last week which covered both issues involved. There are huge numbers of products out there which DO NOT MATCH THEIR LABELS and it puts people at serious risk. They had an example of a B vitamin given to infants which was many times more potent than advertised which could harm the infant--- simply because it was mislabeled! Another example had an added toxin in the vitamin because the maker didn't test it's source well enough.
Doctors who know the situation can't fully trust any vitamin. Even a trusted company can screw up; while a regulated industry costs a bit more they don't screw up much.
Besides Trump shit like this is one of the reasons. Americans are tired. Americans once thought only poor people who made bad choices do not get free healthcare and that due to capitalism the US healthcare is superior to Europe and Canada where they come to the US due the superiority ... which was the view in the 1990s.
Greed, corruption, automation, and insanity on the right where the GOP is very very far right and crazy has changed things.
America is historically anti communist due to the end of World War II were Russia was the new Nazi germany as they owned 1/3 of the world! These folks are now old gray hairs and dying out.
Some voters voted for Trump as a middle finger to all this. They got had and now the left with the introduction of Obamacare have both caused a fire. Something has to change. People are dying. In Alabama British reporters were shocked to see poverty normally seen in third world countries in the good old USA outside of the cities. The young folks screwed over can't buy homes like their parents. Enough is enough. This is just one example and the Tax bill which was a gift to the lobbyists who treated the GOP with dont' bother coming to us for money if you don't rip people off for us just happened.
It is now time.
http://saveie6.com/
Some investment firm did the same thing with pinworm medicine. What used to be two competing prescription medicines at around $15 is now a single option at $400 a pill, minimum two pills. Doctors don't realize the exorbitant cost because it's a new change and because insurance often covers it. Pharmacies don't stock the new medicine because of the exorbitant cost and will only order it if you can prove you're covered by your insurance. Result, a royally screwed up national healthcare market so that a handful of rich greedy assholes can unfairly profiteer off people's health requirements.
Itâ(TM)s strange how few people seem to understand that if youâ(TM)re prescribed 100mg of a medication (or vitamin) twice daily, and its price is $10 per tablet, but thereâ(TM)s a non-prescription version is $0.02 ea, and its 25mg ea., you can just buy 4 times as much, over the counter paying in effect 8 cents for a ten dollar tablet, saving $9.92 for each dayâ(TM)s 100mg dose.
Considering that production of stuff like that basically costs nothing, $5 for 100 pills is already a rip off.
What is wrong with just eating healthy? You don't need vitamin supplements.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Pharmacies are required by the law to offer a substitute for a prescribed medicine with a generally available interchangeable alternative, which would be the case for typical painkillers and I guess for vitamins as well. Works very well. Generic substitution
markets can work beautifully in many cases since it allows consumers to decide how the money is spent and can allow choices and competition.
But, its time for some anti-gouging laws because this is getting outrageous. Don't confuse the issue of consumer driven choices on what they want to buy and the idea that we need some regulations here to stop the consumer from being abused by these kinds of tactics. An anti gouging law of course doesnt mandate the consumer what kind of vitamin to buy but would stop them from being gouged, so its not really a rabid anti-market thing.
Its not just this vitamin but other drugs are being hiked in this manner.
I also know that research on drugs does take place in a taxpayer funded manner. This is not a rebuke of markets since private investment can also fund many important drugs as well. Each comes with pros and cons so its a good idea to have both modes of research funding. Sometimes bureaucracies in government can hamper research and sometimes the risk averse nature of markets can so its good to be able to have one to balance the other, regarding things that are so critical in curing diseases.
I count "world's largest healthcare market" as being the one with most amount of possible users, that being the people, not by how much money is being circulated atm.
Doctor's prefer this because you don't always know what you're getting when you buy OTC vitamins. They're largely unregulated. When you buy prescription vitamins you know exactly what you're getting because they're now fully regulated by the FDA. Source: I've had close family members with cancer who've been prescribed vitamins.
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It raises HDL, the good cholesterol, but does nothing for heart attacks and slightly increases the risk of strokes... so the only reason to prescribe niacin other than niacin-deficiency is not worth it.
Niacin deficiency causes dementia, dermatitis (rash), diarrhea, and death.
Captcha: Bowels.
In Asia, I pay 2 cents per pill for an "obsolete drug" that stops some common forms of cancer metastasis but is unadvertised, ignored and/or unavailable in most of the world. This saves me $20-30,000 a month in the US for a biotech drug.
Any why is that I wonder? An obsolete miracle drug that stops the spread of common forms of cancer, it is cheap to make, and nobody outside Asia makes it or uses it... Doesn't that sound a little fishy to you? At what point does your bullshit detector go off? Asian 'medicine' is notorious for all sorts of worthless quack treatments and the FDA was created to keep useless, dangerous, and addictive medicine away from people. They aren't perfect, but they do a pretty good job of that.
If you have a real condition that is treated by this 'medicine', I am happy for you and I wish you a long life. But you should really read what you wrote and think carefully about why the entire rest of the world isn't using this miracle drug.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
"two large randomized controlled trials of niacin, AIM-HIGH and HPS2-THRIVE, have shown that despite its effects on HDL-C, niacin does not decrease the incidence of cardiovascular events and may have significant adverse effects."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
Things like this will make america great again...
By keeping weak and unhealthy people from coming to america
Also by forcing unhealthy and weak people to leave
Consumers need to take responsibility for themselves, their health, and their finances. Know what your doctor is doing, know what medicines are being prescribed. it's your health, after all, and ultimately also your wallet.
Example: I went in to a clinic for an ultrasound of the other day. While I'm sitting there, the doc places his ultrasound gadget on some unrelated body-part. On my bill appears a charge for Fr. 60. I can either blindly accept the bill, or I can apply my brain, go back to the doctor's office and say "not what I ordered, not paying this, take it off the bill". Doctors are service providers just like any other - people need to treat them as such, and not as all-knowing and infallible demigods.
Same for prescriptions. You get a prescription, tell the doc to explain what it is, what it's for, etc.. Ask if there is an OTC or generic version. If not, ask if there is an equivalent medicine that would be OTC or generic. Also: research it yourself: all this stuff is online. Sometimes you'll even find information that your doctor is unaware of.
Lastly, in the US where ObamaCare has screwed up the markets beyond recognition, there are an increasing number of places that will take cash. Last time I visited the US, I saw exactly this: while we were there, our son came down with strep throat. Went to a local doc, told him we were paying cash: they were suddenly all smiles, and the prices were very reasonable. They didn't want to deal with the insurance crap any more than we did.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Eat Vegemite.
Now what do I do about the continuous vomiting?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It is quite OK that the pharmaceutical is raising the cost of prescription Niacin. I was using high Niacin amounts to control Cholesterol after two heart attacks. A few months ago I went to my cardiologist for a routine check up. The doctor told me that the latest studies indicate that Niacin is useless for cholesterol control. Checking the studies online, the doctor is correct.
Go ahead and raise prices, the medical professionals now advise against Niacin for cholesterol - even when you are Statin intolerant, as I am.
David Diamond- Demonization and Deception in Cholesterol Research
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX1vBA9bLNk&feature=youtu.be
It is a story because most doctors in the U.S. prescribe medicines by brand name. If the prescription forbids substitutions (a decision that was possibly made with the assumption that there isn’t much cost difference between generic and branded versions), or if if the brand name manufacturer had introduced any subtle change in the formula or presentation (for example, dosage of 295 mg instead of 300 mg, such that no perfectly identical generic will be found), the pharmacy will deliver the branded version, no questions asked. The patient will pay their ten dollar co-pay and the insurance will be billed the rest. Nobody will notice anything. And the following year, everybody’s health insurance premiums will go up by another insane percentage, as usual.
There is no real competition in pharmaceuticals because nobody (prescribers, patients, government) cares about the cost of medicines (or treatment, for that matter), except insurance companies (who secretly negotiate what they pay) and, regrettably, patients who are not insured enough to cover the cost of what they need (and those, as we all know too well, have zero influence).
beneficial? Just eat right and you shouldn't need them.
Whee! Time for some off-topic speculation!
Some initial disclaimers:
1) I'm going to assume Trump isn't impeached, imprisoned, has a stroke and dies or just decides its too much work and that he does indeed run again in 2020.
2) I'm going to assume that there's no amazing superstar Democrat coming out of left field (har har pun) that I've never heard of and therefore of course can't foresee.
With that out of the way we have on the right well.. Trump. Since we've assumed he's not impeached, we'll also assume that Muller finds nothing and his record is cleared of wrongdoing (or at least its buried deep enough that even a special investigation can't find it.)
And on the left we have.. who? Bernie Sanders would be the obvious choice based on his current standings in the polls.. but he's too far left for much of the established Democratic party and they're likely to try their best to keep him off the ticket again. But lets assume they fail and he gets on there and we get two old guys with wild hair battling it out. To be honest, I'd probably still give it to Trump. He's enough of a showman that I think he could bluster his way out of 4 years of screwing the people and essentially out-loudmouth Sanders.
So who else.. there's some talk that Chelsea Clinton might be interested in running. I think she might have a chance if she's very, very careful about stepping out of her parents' shadow while not entirely disowning them. It would be a very fine line to walk but I think its doable if she's got the gumption. I don't really know enough about her to judge whether she's got that gumption or not but even if she does, I don't think its would work in 2020. Maybe by 2028 or even 2032 depending on what happens between now and then. Hillary's downfall is still too fresh in mind.
So she's out. Bernie's pretty questionable. That leaves.. who? There's just not that many big-name democrats right now and the moderately-known dems like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have been getting their names dragged through the mud far too much. They would have to go on a miracle winning streak to gain back enough traction to even have a hope of even getting nominated (and that's already assuming they would want the job and accept the nomination..)
Trouble is, while everyone makes a stink about Trumps ratings right now, a lot of people don't seem to notice or care about the fact that Democrats aren't really doing much better. There is a large amount of the American public who are just disillusioned with the whole mess and don't really like either party. That's a very different and relatively new concept. We're talking about a large percentage of voters who actively dislike politics rather than just being apathetic about it.
Going back to my assumptions, #1 is of course pretty tenuous. Between Muller and Trump's age (and not-especially-healthy lifestyle) and the recent speculation that he may just not want to deal with another 4 years, its entirely possibly we won't see him in 2020. Now the GOP isn't nearly as lacking for candidates as the Dems are. Paul Ryan comes to mind immediately -- he's pretty camera-friendly if nothing else and seems to be held in fairly high esteem (at least by those who like tax cuts for the wealthy.) But he doesn't have Trump's showmanship and definitely would not be as strong.
I could also see Ivanka or maybe even Eric trying their hand at the game (Don Jr's shot himself in the foot too many times.. Eric gets a lot of flak for being less than photogenic but he hasn't actually done anything that would rule him out.. that we know about.. and the few things we have heard about Eric have been grudgingly positive, or at least not explicitly negative. Then again maybe he really is as dense as the liberal media mocks him for being..) But as with Chelsea, I don't see it happening in 2020 for either of them. Would certainly be an interesting time if we get Chelsea vs Ivanka at some point though -- the US would guaranteed have their first female president if tha
I should add a third assumption:
3) We don't have WW3 break out or a Yellowstone eruption or something similarly disastrous that just flat out changes everything and makes all current politics somewhat irrelevant.
yes, fucking kill these bastards. It's the only way to stop this shit.
Capitalism is by nature unethical.
Only if you contort and narrow the definition of ethics and capitalism to fit a very contrived view point. Capitalism is neither ethical or unethical. A person can be a capitalist and be very ethical or they can be unethical. Capitalism as a philosophy and an economic system is amoral. (which is different from immoral) It is the society around it and the norms of that society that determine whether an action taken is ethical or not.
it relies on competition to drive unethical practices out and leave only the best of the best.
Capitalism has nothing to do with ethical or unethical practices. Never did and never will. That's why we have regulations around capitalism to shape behavior towards ethical practices.
Generics are the exact same as the originals.
That's not true in a lot of cases. The active ingredients are supposed to be the same but the formulation is rarely identical. Different inactive ingredients, different processing techniques, etc. Most of the time these differences are inconsequential but not always.
Let's call this sort of thing "The Shkreli Maneuver".
Translation: Doctors get a kickback from prescribing a vitamin. Clueless patients fill the prescription and send it to their insurance. Everybody loses except doctors and drug companies.
Here is a less cynical and probably more accurate version
Over The Counter vitamins are an almost completely unregulated market (congress specifically forbade the FDA from regulating vitamins) and it's been demonstrated that major retailers are selling fakes. So if you are a doctor and it's important to ensure a patient get the proper dosage of that vitamin, what other options do you have?
Translation: FDA approved vitamins that other vitamin manufacturers either cant get approval for or have to spend a fortune to get.
The FDA is forbidden from regulating vitamins. The only power the FDA has is to limit the sale of a product it finds to be unsafe.
Since we've assumed he's not impeached, we'll also assume that Muller finds nothing and his record is cleared of wrongdoing
This is already an impossibility, Mueller (I emphasize the spelling since you got it wrong), has already gotten plea deals that make it impossible to clear Trump of wrong-doing, not that there aren't tons of other things that document Trump's misdeeds, but you premise your arguments on the impossible.
In any case, you're focusing your attention on the White House, but neglecting Congress. Which in the House, is balanced on a major upset in the form of the Supreme Court looking hard at the districting process. Not to mention the rest of the legislature.
A decision in Gill v. Whitford that leads to a nationwide change BEFORE the next elections in 2018? Unlikely, perhaps, but would turn a lot of tables around. And it will hit before 2020.
Most vitamins don'r degrade at all.
Care to bet on that? Unless you can store them in a thermally stable environment with no exposure to light, humidity or oxygen there what you just said is demonstrably not true.
Kid: "Hey mom! Look at this! This Himalaya salt has a 'best consume before 2022' date! It must be really good!"
Salt is not a vitamin.
Niacin was recommended to me to raise my "good" cholesterol (which statins don't do). However, I was told that the "flush-free" niacin (niacinamide) found in over-the-counter vitamins would not have that effect. So to get niacin I had to get the prescription form. It had a small effect on my good cholesterol, but as has been noted, studies don't show that niacin actually reduces the incidence of heart disease.
So I have stopped taking it.
I liked it so much... I bought the company!!!!
And you can google for websites which independently test various vitamin/supplements.
Great. Some random website tells me its ok. I know it must be true because it is on the internet. [/sarcasm]
Also note that non-prescription vitamins and drugs ("capitalism in action") are dirt cheap, versus FDA approved prescription drugs (government in action) such as Niacor, Epipen, etc are only affordable to lottery winners.
Non prescription drugs are either extremely safe (like asprin) or aren't actually drugs. We have a prescription system because quackery is a real thing. What you get without regulations is something like homeopathics and other snake oil "cures" or fake vitamins that don't actually contain what's on the label. Prescription vitamins are a thing because the OTC versions are of undependable and unverified quality. For some people that isn't good enough.
Now that's no excuse for jacking up the price but quality control IS a real issue with drugs and vitamins.
Wockhardt has FDA approval for a generic. I am not sure if Wockhardt would enter the market because of this. All they have to do is make it and sell it to lower the price.
You can find information like this at Drugs@FDA, with the lovely link https://www.accessdata.fda.gov.... If you search for NIACOR and then look under the result for therapeutic equivalents, you find the approved Wockhardt product has been approved as Application No. 081134 since 1992.
So.. ./ moderators, where IS that News for Nerds??
I bought the powder! That stuff is super cheap in powder form and isn't that slow release namby-pamby crap, FEEL THE BURN! I'm not immune the to "Niacin Sunburn", but I rarely get it anymore. If I happen to be a little dehydrated or I drink the stuff too fast I still get one, but if my wife picks up the cup I've been drinking from and just sips it BURN!!!
I bought this over a year ago and I'm still using the same canister (I should take it more regularly, I've gotten lazy about getting a morning drink together).
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
If the doctor tells them something, or prescribes them something, they take it as gospel. I know my doctor sometimes wants me to take this or that, VERY expensive drugs for blood pressure, cholesterol etc. I have found for the BP problem, instead of taking ONE pill, I can get a generic of basically the same thing, take 2 in the morning, one in the evening and the pills are 8 bucks for NINETY DAYS worth. Does the same thing, works just as well. If people would not so much "challenge" their doctor, but ASK QUESTIONS, about alternatives and what not, things would be better off.
Although niacin, a type of vitamin B3, is available in over-the-counter forms for less than $5 per 100 tablets, some doctors still prefer to use the version approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat high cholesterol.
The issue isn't that the FDA-approved drug, which went thru a series of clinical drug trial to prove efficacy of the treatment increased in price, it's that doctors continue to write prescriptions for this approved brand-name treatment, and that insurance companies are still paying for it.
It makes sense that an infrequently-prescribed treatment would go up in price as fewer and fewer prescriptions are written for it (dwindling sales force prices up to pay for recouping treatment approval costs.
Ken
From the sound of it, are the Rotating Festering Assholes the DC-based successors to the Butthole Surfers ?
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Get your own instead for $5 and to hell with what the doctor tells you. B3 is B3 is B3.
impossible to clear Trump of wrong-doing
Always forget how pedantic /. is. To clarify, he's cleared of enough wrong-doing that he'd still be able to run for the next election. There's almost certainly ties to Russia within Trump's campaign (and probably himself as well) but unless it can be shown that those ties directly impacted the election results (or their actions since taking office,) it likely won't amount to more than a slap on the wrist. Having business dealings with Russia is not a problem. Lying about it when you're running for office is a problem but I doubt its a big enough problem that Trump couldn't bluster his way out of it. Actual treasonous actions on the other hand.. that's a whole different ball game.
you're focusing your attention on the White House, but neglecting Congress
Mostly because the GP was talking about Trump and well, in American politics the president is the face of things.
But if we want to talk about Congress.. I doubt much will change there, especially if Trump gets himself reelected. Sure the odd seat might switch here and there but the house is very republican right now and would have to lose a LOT of seats to swing that.. and the senate hasn't managed to get much done (other than tax cuts for the rich that everyone in congress loves regardless of party,) so switching from a slight republican lean toward a slight democratic lean (especially with republicans controlling both the house and the White House) will probably still leave them just unable to do anything.
Even if Trump doesn't run in 2020, I don't see much change though. Voters are just way too partisan at this point. I mean look at Alabama. Roy Moore damned near won on a platform of "I promise I don't touch little girls!" If a democrat wins the presidency then its likely they'll also take the senate. The house of representatives is still pretty questionable and I doubt they'd get the supermajority (and the ability to start doing things without republican interference) so likely still not much would get done.
A decision in Gill v. Whitford
Even if it does, I'm not sure how much difference it would make. Gerrymandering has been going on for decades by both parties and while it would likely hurt the republicans more at this point, again they have a pretty large lead in the house and killing gerrymandering would hurt many of the democratic seats just as much. We'd hopefully end up with a lot closer and fairer elections on a seat-by-seat basis but looking at it from the higher level view of simple "#dems/#reps" I don't know that it would change things significantly.
Without another superstar on the presidential ticket, I just don't really see things changing that much in the "nobody can get anything done" context. Whether its a republican unable to do anything or a democrat unable to do anything, the end result is the same.
Of course Trump is the superstar right now.. and he had lots of promise to get things done (whether good things or bad is not the point.) But he and his congress just got too greedy on things like healthcare and instead of being able to pass a 90% measure, they repeatedly failed to pass a 120% measure purely because the bills were so unpalatable that even some of their own senators couldn't bring themselves to vote for the things. It takes a lot of screwing over the little guy to make a republican turn down a money grab bill.
Yeah but>
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Hey! REALLY not neccessary. The shareholders will do it themselves when profits drop. Unless anyone thinks that someone is actually going to PAY that ridiculous amount.
There's one warning though. They may have inside information that these particular vitamins are gtoing to be banned in the near future and are acting retroactively. JUst check out online for what happened to the price of the active ingredient in hoit milk when it was banned from OTC sales (L-Tryptophan)
Watching how Americans are screwed by such companies is infuriating as it trickles down to other countries. Most new drugs are invented and researched in universities. A national drugs programme is the way to go but you Americans have been sold a bill of goods that so called socialism is a sin. Pay what you will. The rest of the first world watches this and sneers at the foolishness and corruption of health in Merica, it is pathetic and I pity the poor folk who are the victims of the stupidity and corruption of pharma and the government who plays along with it with lobbies and pay offs...
Wouldn't buying a competitor's product be a gentler Fuck You than that?
And more effective for the patient, as well?
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
For some reason, Martin Shkreli is continually mentioned in articles like this, despite the story about his purported price increase being largely fabricated, or at best, hack journalism that omitted major details about the issue that absolved him of most of accusations made against him, that were readily available solutions to the problems before any PR recovery were necessary.
... as long as the medicine affected is against easily preventable illnesses ... sorry, but high cholesterol is a result of eating habits ... by changing food intake to more healthy ways of eating, probably near 100% of high cholesterol can be cured ... ...
Of course it is easier to just treat the symptoms instead of the cause