Pricey drugs, precious time

[question everything]

Pricey drugs, precious time

By Paul Elias
ASSOCIATED PRESS

March 30, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO – In the two weeks since Genentech's expensive new drug Avastin was found to help the sickest lung cancer patients live a few months longer than expected, investors have pumped nearly $17 billion into the company.

But what's good for the patients, the company and its investors is also heavily stressing the ailing U.S. health care system, raising uncomfortable questions about the cost of end-of-life care. "We are spending huge sums of money on treatments that are offering only modest benefits," said Dr. Richard Deyo, a University of Washington professor who recently wrote a book on the subject.

The average annual premium for employer-sponsored family coverage will be $14,565 in 2006, more than double what it was in 2001, forecasts the National Coalition on Health Care, a Washington, D.C.-based alliance of business, labor, religious and civic groups. The ranks of the uninsured are rising as well, and lawmakers are looking for cuts to bring Medicare spending under control. Much of the blame is being laid on prescription drug costs, which have spiraled from $12 billion annually in 1980 to $179 billion in 2003, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

(snip)

Genentech and other industry supporters argue that when it comes to cancer, success is measured in the smallest of increments, and that the high cost of developing new treatments – about $850 million per drug on average – warrants the high price tags. Doctors and their well-insured patients, meanwhile, are willing to try anything – and everything – for even a few extra days of life. For the patients whose health insurance plans pay these astronomical costs, the drugs can seem heaven-sent. Who wouldn't want two more months with loved ones before they die?

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Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050330/news_1b30drugs.html

[Warpy]

1. Those high price tags are from all those fucking TV commercials

and drug companies typically spend on advertising twice what they spend on research and development of new medications.

That is the basic lie, folks. The stupidest, least ethical thing Congress has ever done is allow those fuckers advertise directly to people who can't diagnose themselves and can't prescribe their own treatments, knowing they'll clamor for the newest thing when they do see a doctor and the drug company sales will soar on people taking targeted poisons that they don't need because of FASHION.

Banning direct advertising should be the first order of business. It's wasteful and expensive and the ethics are appalling.

[question everything]

2. Exactly! Before they are crying that "research" causes high price

of drugs, and to object to importation from Canada and Mexico, they should cut on their ads for prescription medication.

[Selteri]

3. I've been saying it for years and everyone makes excuses

like a dog trained to bark on command.

The reality is that last year theese companies spend more on advertisement than they did on research.