The world’s eleven largest drug companies made a net profit
of $711.4 billion from 2003 to 2012. Six of these companies are headquartered
in the United Sates: Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Abbot Laboratories, Merck,
Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly.
Drug company profits are literally killing people - and now
even doctors are speaking out. Dr. Leonard Saltz, chief of gastrointestinal
oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, rebuked the pharmaceutical
industry for the sharp rise in cancer drug prices over the last decade. Dr.
Saltz explained part of the problem: "Cancer-drug prices are not related
to the value of the drug. Prices are based on what has come before and what the
seller believes the market will bear."
The median monthly price for new cancer drugs nearly doubled
between 2000 and 2014 - from a monthly cost of $4,716 between 2000 and 2004 to
a monthly cost of about $9,900 between 2010 and 2014.
A feature of our current system is that pharmaceutical companies
don't have to worry about what people can afford to pay for a product. Because
monopolies set their own prices. And that's what a patent is: a state-backed
monopoly on a product. Patents last for 20 years after filing, and drug
companies even enjoy special extensions to make up for delays in FDA approval. And
that means that drug companies don't have to worry about competitive pricing or
creating demand because the consumer can only choose between treatment or
misery and death.
So when a company develops a drug that treats a
life-threatening illness, they can simply set their price: $1,000 per pill for
Hepatitis C treatment; $10,000 for a month of cancer treatment; $300,000 for
the year of treatment.
Can't pay? Don't want to pay? Maybe you'd prefer to die.
It's all the same to the companies. Businesses that make our medicine don't do
it for public health - they do it for profit. A two-tiered society has been
created: those who can afford to pay to stay alive, and those who can't.
Medicine + the profit system (aka capitalism) = death and
disease. Simple as that.
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