Thank you for posting this, dlb!

And note the link to their upcoming Value in Cancer Care summit (free to patients) at the bottom of the column. Separately, there's a link to an earlier article that is mentioned in this article:

Cancer, bankruptcy and death: study finds a link

Why are drug companies doing this? BECAUSE THEY CAN! (Never knew when I wrote that song, based on personal experience, back in 2002, that it would concern matters of life & death).

Anyone here wanna take that little weasel Martin Shkreli, string him up like a piñata, and hand out baseball bats? (Louisville Sluggers, not aluminum).

Back when we lived in Seattle (and my husband was in med school doing a rotation at the Hutch), I was in private law practice across the lake in Bellevue. I did dozens of bankruptcies--and only one was due to profligacy or credit card abuse. The rest were ALL caused by catastrophic medical expenses, and most of those folks had supposedly adequate health insurance. Mind you, this was back in 1976-8, when cancer drugs were nowhere near as expensive as they are now.

The most outrageous thing about the drug companies is their disingenuousness--“research & development costs?” Oh, really? So other countries won’t let them charge gov’t providers “list price,” therefore R&D costs have to be recouped on the backs of Americans instead? Get real: marketing & advertising takes a much bigger chunk of change off the bottom line. Because of Federal rules, drug company detail-persons can no longer spend megabucks wooing doctors; but what about those TV commercials and magazine ads for prescription drugs? They used to be limited by law to physicians via medical journals and continuing-ed programs on medical cable TV channels. But now it seems they are about to outnumber even car commercials. In magazines, they take up annoying multi-page spreads that make it annoying to have to follow “continued on page...” articles. On TV, it’s even worse. They’re at least a full minute long (a royal pain even when fast-forwarding via DVR) and many of them are for drugs that Medicare and most insurers won’t cover, to treat diseases that most people don’t have, with side effects worse and often more dangerous than the diseases, often requiring yet another drug to treat. The average consumer doesn’t know a biologic from a Bufferin and used to be able to rely on physicians to tell them what is available and appropriate to treat their ailments. Now they’re bombarded with ad copy mentioning diseases they never knew existed (indeed, most drugs being advertised were developed first without determining what they would treat) and told to “ask your doctor" if it “can help you” (leading to unnecessary doctors’ appointments as well).

A good start would be to outlaw prescription-drug advertising in any media geared to the lay public. It wouldn’t be a free-speech issue, since SCOTUS has upheld bans on broadcast tobacco advertising and tobacco or alcohol-ad billboards within a certain distance of schools. It would allow drug companies to continue those coy “do you have (name of symptom)? Ask your doctor about a treatment that might help you” commercials; but they’re shorter and cheaper--the cost could be re-routed into responsible research or eliminate a barrier to Congress allowing Medicare & Medicaid to negotiate drug prices.

From your link:

Donald Trump

Trump does not have an official health care proposal on his campaign web site, so the following is based on information gathered through published interviews.

Obamacare: Repeal it. Allow consumers to buy plans from insurers in any state, no matter where they live. Trump supports the use of health savings accounts to pay for medical expenses not covered by insurance.

Drug prices: No information available.

Health care costs: No information available.

Medicare: Preserve Medicare by growing the economy to strengthen the program, but there's no detailed information available.

Medicaid: Trump says the government must provide assistance to those in need. No detailed information is available, but he says the government will work out a deal with hospitals to provide care for low-income people.

Abortion: He thinks it should be banned at some point in the pregnancy, but he supports abortion in the case of rape or incest or when the mother's life is at risk.

Martin Shkreli, the "Pharmaceutical CEO" has been demonized for doing in a flamboyant and outrageous manner, what all the pharmaceutical companies are now doing, buying up the generics for critical drugs and increasing the prices - in his case x thousands. It is a shame that he is taking attention away from the major pharmaceutical companies which are doing the same thing but are strategically keeping the new inflated prices to something the insurance companies can swallow. Why do the R&D necessary to create new drugs, when there are profits to be gained by simply jacking up the prices of old drug?. Of course they will still scream when their drugs go off patent, but they obviously can wring a significant profit out of those generics that specific populations desperately need.
This is capitalism pure and simple. marketplace medicine -disgusting.

well it's nice a few of us are following current events. I think cancer treatment should be free, that'll get them moving

I thought I would chime in. On what Shkreli did (drove up price of a generic) - shouldn't there be more competition in generic drugs, given that there is no patent proptection? Why isn't there? Look at the FDA, which has been dragging its feet to approve new manufacturing facilities. New producers need FDA approval, but government bureaucracy slows this down, perhaps aided by pharma.

"Because They Can" sums it up perfectly...(Love that song!)... for actions on the part of BIG Pharma. BIG contributions to FDA... 1000+ BIG lobbyists ....follow the money trail.

Television networks are losing viewer market share to the internet, thankfully due to popular brilliant websites, such as this one.

Only TWO (2) countries in the entire world reportedly allow and/or promote TV pharma advertising of prescription drugs to general consumer audiences. You guessed it.... USA and New Zealand. Guess why? Follow the $$$.

Please read BIG Pharma articles posted at DrugWatch.com

Well said, sisters! Thanks for the links.

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