This is par for the course for this industry. Money before all else same as the banks, MP's etc.
I am a retired pharmacist who practised in Southern Africa and can assure everyone that the effects of this scam are global and not merely restricted to the USA..
The real scam perpetrated was 2 fold;.
1. Premarin (oestrogen) is derived from animal sources and was pushed by Wyeth because they claimed that this decreased the life threatening embolism when compared to synthetic oestrogen.
2. The main selling point was not cosmetic (ageing etc) but osteoporosis (thining of the bone). Roughly a third of post menopausal women suffer this terrible condition. Since there is no method to determine whether a woman is a candidate apart from familial history, they hit on the idea that every woman should receive hormone supplements indefinitely to preclude this. Their main selling point was; use Premarin because statistically it is less likely to cause an embolism. There is also evidence that women are less likely to suffer embolism related diseases than their male counterparts pre-menopause and they presented evidence (along with others) that endogenous hormones (oestrogen/progesterone) impart a natural protection. They of course quietly ignored the fact that in the '70's they manufactured a high dose premarin injectable for use in cases of severe haemorrhage.
Way back in the 50's when these companies were starting out many countries insisted (some still do) that the Managing Director was a registered Pharmacist. As such that professional is subject to disciplinary action for acts that are harmful to his patient. Throughout the West the Pharma's persuaded Governments that this is not necessary and they are responsible people.
As many have said it's time to start criminal proceedings against the people responsible. There will be hundreds of women out there who have died as a result of this scam. It's time for Governments to demonstrate to these thieves and crooks that there are consequences for this behaviour and see that they are dealt with by the Courts. So those of you that live in the USA it's time to contact your political reps and show them that its time to care.
I work in a hotel; take the soap and put it to good use because when the cleaner walks in, it goes into a black bag for disposal.
Would you use soap someone else had used?
Any health professional knows or should know this. Fructose (aka Corn syrup) is derived from Sucrose (table sugar) by cleaving the molecule and yielding 50% fructose and 50% glucose. Fructose has been recommended for use by diabetics for many years when they go into hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar levels) as it can be used immediately with no biochemical modifications by the body. Fructose is found naturally in many fruits. It is a major ingredient of most soft drinks and the first to use it was the famous American soda C*** Cola. It is also the main ingredient of most sport energy drinks.
Unfortunately it seems that the popular media seems to think that fat in the diet is the major reason for obesity, particularly in the UK where there is seldom any attention given to carbohydrates of any type. Carbohydrates are the major cause of obesity in almost all societies. Just examine the metabolic pathway of the body to understand why. The body uses the easiest pathway to generate energy and the quickest is fructose. The body's common fuel is glucose. In normal times there should be sufficient glucose intake (mostly derived from the breakdown of complex carbohydrates like flour and potatoes) to supply the body's needs. When the body has more glucose than it needs it produces it's own starch called glycogen which is then stored (mainly in the liver). There is obviously an exchange process at work all the time. When the body is low on glucose it will convert glycogen to glucose. When there are excessive supplies of glycogen and glucose it will convert the glycogen into fat for storage around the body. In states of energy deficiency the body will use its own protein.
In the developed world where people have moved from a state of survival into a state of excess they consume excessive quantities of carbohydrates, fats and salt. The energy pathway described above is a simplistic view but the body will always use the simplest route to energy. It will use sugar first, then complex carbohydrates and then protein. Fat will mostly be sent to storage. Because most of us consume to much carbohydrate we gain weight through the conversion to starch and fat. Anyone who has been on a diet will know that weight loss occurs in stages as the body starts to mobilise the glycogen and fat stores which take a while to convert in significant quantities.
There are various moral issues at work here. I am a retired pharmacist of 30 years and the son of a pharmacist.
The key issue arises out of the decision in the 1950's to allow pharmaceutical manufacturers to operate outside the ambit of professional bodies. Prior to the '50's the manufacture of pharmaceuticals was very small scale and handled at pharmacy level in the main. The advent of major chemical research enabled the analysis of chemicals and the development of chemical moeities at a much more sophisticated level.
I am not aware why the decision was taken in the '50's to allow people other than pharmacists to own and develop pharmaceuticals but it was probably economically driven. By going this route it put owners outside effective control of professional bodies. This in hindsight was wrong because in many respects a great deal of research at company level is driven by profit and not by the needs of communities as has been stated a lot in this thread, eg HIV, TB, malaria.
The period of patent protection at 20 years is fair enough since the patent is taken out before any product is actually developed. The company may in fact register many patents for slightly different molecular stuctures of the same active ingredient. Over the 10 years of testing and development perhaps only 1 will be found to be useful. It is a norm for products to take 10 - 12 years before they hit the market.
Generics are also not rationally priced. In most cases generic pricing is not relative to production cost but has a direct relationship to the original. In most cases the original manufacturer supplies the active ingredient to the generic manufacturer. The original manufacturer seldom if ever reduces their price once the patent expires.
The one thing is certian, until Governments take hard decisions about the morality of exploiting the sick and vulnerable, this is going to continue.
During my stay in the US, teaching at a respected US university, trying to make people understand that $ 12,500 for an AIDS cure was a death sentence for many patients was a nearly hopeless task.
So, why is it that this discussion hasn't focused on the issue of prevention. The spread of AIDS in Africa, the Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia is largely the result of unprotected sex. Why is it that public health measures (e.g. use of condoms) is more actively promoted? Why is it that some of the govenments of these countries actually promote misinformation? I can only give a background to the Africa situation. In South Africa itself neither the current President nor the current Minster of Health believe that HIV/AIDS is real. The same situation applied in Zimbabwe. These political leaders have always believed that this disease is scare tactic being used by the West to inhibit their population growth. Unless you have lived in Africa this is difficult to comprehend but is a legacy of colonialism.
Many different approaches have been used to educate the population about the dangers of HIV and condoms are distributed freely but are not used. The governments of the of Southern and Central Africa do not publish statistics and no deaths are ever attributed directly to AIDS. So if a person who has AIDS and contracts TB and dies then the death is attributed to TB. Officially there are no AIDS deaths. Realistically this could be one of the greatest human disasters in history with some 30 - 40 million people in the region dying in the next 20 years.
It is sad that you do not know what a paragraph is.. I had paragraphs but did not realise that one has to html format unlike other sites. First time posting here!
....... or probably a forskin. and is there any need to be so crude or rude?
I was in this industry for 25 years and my father for 25 years before me. I practised in Southern Africa during this period and was an elected representative on the national body of the Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa (PSSA). I can speak on the subject with some authority because I know the background of what it is like for 3rd World economies.
Pharmaceutical Companies (PC's) apply differential pricing depending on where they are operating. eg identical medicines are 14% more expensive in the USA than they are in Europe. The major PC's are all in the top 20% of the top 100 listings on the stock exchanges of the world. They give returns of twice as much as their comparative listed companies. Most provide annual returns of over 20% compared to their non-pharmaceutical rivals 10%.
An example of the type of tactics they use their patents for could be seen a few years ago in South Africa. The South African pharmaceutical market is divided into 2 categories - State and private sector. The state buys all their medicine on tender. In order to obtain tenders the companies supply at stupid prices and then load the loss on the private sector. Examples shown indicated that some medicines were 1000% more expensive than the tender price. This process led to enormous pressure in the private sector. Over a period of 20 years (1980 - 2000) the component of medicine spend in the total health spend rose from 15% to 34%. The PSSA advocated the importation of pharmaceuticals from the EU or India where they some 30% and 100% cheaper respectively. The Dept of Health formalised this in amendments to the regulations in 2000. They even inspected factories in India and licenced them for supply to South Africa. The Pharmaceutical Industry immediately drew the attention of the Government to their patent rights. The US State Dept was called in to assist. I was a speaker on a panel discussing this legislation in 1998 and seated next to me was this representative from the US Embassy. The threat was made at this discussion that should this legislation be invoked South Afica would be transgressing International Patent Law and the US government would advocate their exclusion from international trade rights.
The PC's do not provide anything to their host countries except employment. They utilise a system of transfer pricing for their production. How this works is that the local company calculates the production volumes of a given medicine and the local cost of production. Their parent company then calculates the profit they wish to make and this then becomes the retail price. The local company is then sold the production materials from the parent company. The invoice value is the retail price less the production cost. This in real terms that that they are effectively making no profit in the country of production and therefore pay no tax. This is technically illegal in most countries but is almost impossible to provce since they hold the patent rights on the product and no one can prove the real cost of the product.
The last point is that there is very little original research going on currently. Most "new" medicines are computer modelled clones of existing molecules. Research is going on in many State funded institutions and the PC's often buy the intellectual rights or are involved in providing some funding of this research.
The issue of the relationship between what they spend R&D and marketing is raised because whenever they are questioned about the high prices they are charging they always point to how much they have to spend on R&D.
The other interesting facet about their pricing is how much they charge for "cosmetic" medicine eg treatments for acne or fertility agents.
This is a wicked industry and they have great plans and will strangle health care globally.
Slashdot Mirror
This is par for the course for this industry. Money before all else same as the banks, MP's etc.
I am a retired pharmacist who practised in Southern Africa and can assure everyone that the effects of this scam are global and not merely restricted to the USA..
The real scam perpetrated was 2 fold;.
1. Premarin (oestrogen) is derived from animal sources and was pushed by Wyeth because they claimed that this decreased the life threatening embolism when compared to synthetic oestrogen.
2. The main selling point was not cosmetic (ageing etc) but osteoporosis (thining of the bone). Roughly a third of post menopausal women suffer this terrible condition. Since there is no method to determine whether a woman is a candidate apart from familial history, they hit on the idea that every woman should receive hormone supplements indefinitely to preclude this. Their main selling point was; use Premarin because statistically it is less likely to cause an embolism. There is also evidence that women are less likely to suffer embolism related diseases than their male counterparts pre-menopause and they presented evidence (along with others) that endogenous hormones (oestrogen/progesterone) impart a natural protection. They of course quietly ignored the fact that in the '70's they manufactured a high dose premarin injectable for use in cases of severe haemorrhage.
Way back in the 50's when these companies were starting out many countries insisted (some still do) that the Managing Director was a registered Pharmacist. As such that professional is subject to disciplinary action for acts that are harmful to his patient. Throughout the West the Pharma's persuaded Governments that this is not necessary and they are responsible people.
As many have said it's time to start criminal proceedings against the people responsible. There will be hundreds of women out there who have died as a result of this scam. It's time for Governments to demonstrate to these thieves and crooks that there are consequences for this behaviour and see that they are dealt with by the Courts. So those of you that live in the USA it's time to contact your political reps and show them that its time to care.
I work in a hotel; take the soap and put it to good use because when the cleaner walks in, it goes into a black bag for disposal. Would you use soap someone else had used?
Any health professional knows or should know this. Fructose (aka Corn syrup) is derived from Sucrose (table sugar) by cleaving the molecule and yielding 50% fructose and 50% glucose. Fructose has been recommended for use by diabetics for many years when they go into hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar levels) as it can be used immediately with no biochemical modifications by the body. Fructose is found naturally in many fruits. It is a major ingredient of most soft drinks and the first to use it was the famous American soda C*** Cola. It is also the main ingredient of most sport energy drinks.
Unfortunately it seems that the popular media seems to think that fat in the diet is the major reason for obesity, particularly in the UK where there is seldom any attention given to carbohydrates of any type. Carbohydrates are the major cause of obesity in almost all societies. Just examine the metabolic pathway of the body to understand why. The body uses the easiest pathway to generate energy and the quickest is fructose. The body's common fuel is glucose. In normal times there should be sufficient glucose intake (mostly derived from the breakdown of complex carbohydrates like flour and potatoes) to supply the body's needs. When the body has more glucose than it needs it produces it's own starch called glycogen which is then stored (mainly in the liver). There is obviously an exchange process at work all the time. When the body is low on glucose it will convert glycogen to glucose. When there are excessive supplies of glycogen and glucose it will convert the glycogen into fat for storage around the body. In states of energy deficiency the body will use its own protein.
In the developed world where people have moved from a state of survival into a state of excess they consume excessive quantities of carbohydrates, fats and salt. The energy pathway described above is a simplistic view but the body will always use the simplest route to energy. It will use sugar first, then complex carbohydrates and then protein. Fat will mostly be sent to storage. Because most of us consume to much carbohydrate we gain weight through the conversion to starch and fat. Anyone who has been on a diet will know that weight loss occurs in stages as the body starts to mobilise the glycogen and fat stores which take a while to convert in significant quantities.
There are various moral issues at work here. I am a retired pharmacist of 30 years and the son of a pharmacist.
The key issue arises out of the decision in the 1950's to allow pharmaceutical manufacturers to operate outside the ambit of professional bodies. Prior to the '50's the manufacture of pharmaceuticals was very small scale and handled at pharmacy level in the main. The advent of major chemical research enabled the analysis of chemicals and the development of chemical moeities at a much more sophisticated level.
I am not aware why the decision was taken in the '50's to allow people other than pharmacists to own and develop pharmaceuticals but it was probably economically driven. By going this route it put owners outside effective control of professional bodies. This in hindsight was wrong because in many respects a great deal of research at company level is driven by profit and not by the needs of communities as has been stated a lot in this thread, eg HIV, TB, malaria.
The period of patent protection at 20 years is fair enough since the patent is taken out before any product is actually developed. The company may in fact register many patents for slightly different molecular stuctures of the same active ingredient. Over the 10 years of testing and development perhaps only 1 will be found to be useful. It is a norm for products to take 10 - 12 years before they hit the market.
Generics are also not rationally priced. In most cases generic pricing is not relative to production cost but has a direct relationship to the original. In most cases the original manufacturer supplies the active ingredient to the generic manufacturer. The original manufacturer seldom if ever reduces their price once the patent expires.
The one thing is certian, until Governments take hard decisions about the morality of exploiting the sick and vulnerable, this is going to continue.
Many different approaches have been used to educate the population about the dangers of HIV and condoms are distributed freely but are not used. The governments of the of Southern and Central Africa do not publish statistics and no deaths are ever attributed directly to AIDS. So if a person who has AIDS and contracts TB and dies then the death is attributed to TB. Officially there are no AIDS deaths. Realistically this could be one of the greatest human disasters in history with some 30 - 40 million people in the region dying in the next 20 years.
....... or probably a forskin. and is there any need to be so crude or rude?I was in this industry for 25 years and my father for 25 years before me. I practised in Southern Africa during this period and was an elected representative on the national body of the Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa (PSSA). I can speak on the subject with some authority because I know the background of what it is like for 3rd World economies. Pharmaceutical Companies (PC's) apply differential pricing depending on where they are operating. eg identical medicines are 14% more expensive in the USA than they are in Europe. The major PC's are all in the top 20% of the top 100 listings on the stock exchanges of the world. They give returns of twice as much as their comparative listed companies. Most provide annual returns of over 20% compared to their non-pharmaceutical rivals 10%. An example of the type of tactics they use their patents for could be seen a few years ago in South Africa. The South African pharmaceutical market is divided into 2 categories - State and private sector. The state buys all their medicine on tender. In order to obtain tenders the companies supply at stupid prices and then load the loss on the private sector. Examples shown indicated that some medicines were 1000% more expensive than the tender price. This process led to enormous pressure in the private sector. Over a period of 20 years (1980 - 2000) the component of medicine spend in the total health spend rose from 15% to 34%. The PSSA advocated the importation of pharmaceuticals from the EU or India where they some 30% and 100% cheaper respectively. The Dept of Health formalised this in amendments to the regulations in 2000. They even inspected factories in India and licenced them for supply to South Africa. The Pharmaceutical Industry immediately drew the attention of the Government to their patent rights. The US State Dept was called in to assist. I was a speaker on a panel discussing this legislation in 1998 and seated next to me was this representative from the US Embassy. The threat was made at this discussion that should this legislation be invoked South Afica would be transgressing International Patent Law and the US government would advocate their exclusion from international trade rights. The PC's do not provide anything to their host countries except employment. They utilise a system of transfer pricing for their production. How this works is that the local company calculates the production volumes of a given medicine and the local cost of production. Their parent company then calculates the profit they wish to make and this then becomes the retail price. The local company is then sold the production materials from the parent company. The invoice value is the retail price less the production cost. This in real terms that that they are effectively making no profit in the country of production and therefore pay no tax. This is technically illegal in most countries but is almost impossible to provce since they hold the patent rights on the product and no one can prove the real cost of the product. The last point is that there is very little original research going on currently. Most "new" medicines are computer modelled clones of existing molecules. Research is going on in many State funded institutions and the PC's often buy the intellectual rights or are involved in providing some funding of this research. The issue of the relationship between what they spend R&D and marketing is raised because whenever they are questioned about the high prices they are charging they always point to how much they have to spend on R&D. The other interesting facet about their pricing is how much they charge for "cosmetic" medicine eg treatments for acne or fertility agents. This is a wicked industry and they have great plans and will strangle health care globally.