People are already dying. The question is whether the pile of bodies would be higher, and I don't see how it could be. The monopoly epipen is apparently not the best design, so it is killing people from being difficult to use. The monopoly pricing is killing people from being too expensive to have or just too expensive to stock-pile, which is the biggest problem because miss-use seems to be chief failure of all such devices resulting in them no longer being usable, necessitating a second device or a third device to try again. Hence why they require epipens be sold in packs of two: the first shot of the only pen allowed on the market often goes wrong.

So yes: society needs an escape valve for the FDA. When the bureaucracy breaks down, and all bureaucracies do eventually, it is wrong to force individuals to suffer and die waiting for congress to clean house. It should be difficult to use non-FDA approved drugs and delivery devices, but it most certainly should not be a crime.

9/1/2016 8:30:20 AM

So many people are dying from misuse that mortality rates from anaphylaxis have decreased slightly since the 80s, even as rates of anaphylaxis have doubled over that same time frame!

Have no fear folks, Lonesnark is keeping tabs on the body count to ensure optimal outcomes for us all.

9/1/2016 8:43:56 AM

Yes, before the Epipen monopoly, people were more likely to die due to lack of treatment. Just try to imagine how many more could have been saved if not for the FDA enforced monopoly. Googling found stories of people in Europe buying Epipens over the counter for $75.
As for your last quip, I see no argument there. You seem to be mocking the concept of caring whether people live or die.

9/4/2016 7:30:42 PM

I included that last quip because it's obvious, to anyone that visits TSB frequently, that your intent is always to make sure that government receives ALL the blame for ALL bad outcomes. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.


You claim that epipen's monopoly is killing people. Yet death rates from anaphylaxis are as low as they've ever been, virtually unchanged from 5 years ago when epipen was cheaper. Despite the expense, epipen's are as common as ever and more people are trained to use them than ever before.

As for epipen's competitors in Europe, of the ones I could find, all have had significant recalls in the last 5 years for the exact same reasons that the FDA rejected them from the US market. The exact same misuse and poor dosing you accuse epipen's of having three posts up that was "piling the bodies higher"

Jext was recalled for having crooked ass bent needles
http://www.aofa.org/NewsPad/newsletter.asp?article=169

The Auvi-Q was recalled for poor dosing
https://www.auvi-q.com

Twinject was recalled for likely being unsterile
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/EnforcementReports/ucm237050.htm

9/5/2016 8:26:36 AM

Quote :

"Currently, anaphylaxis leads to 500–1,000 deaths per year (2.4 per million) in the United States, 20 deaths per year in the United Kingdom (0.33 per million), and 15 deaths per year in Australia (0.64 per million).[7]"

Quoth wikipedia. There are definitely lots of confounding issues comparing death rates between countries. But, in the United States, our anaphylaxis death rate is over seven times higher than the UK and 3.75 times higher than Australia. So yea, clearly all the confusion and recalls caused by having a competitive market is not killing as many people as our crony government monopoly happens to be.

Quote :

"I included that last quip because it's obvious, to anyone that visits TSB frequently, that your intent is always to make sure that government receives ALL the blame for ALL bad outcomes. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME."

As someone that doesn't visit TSB very often, I usually only come here when it is the government's fault. As such, all those issues I said nothing about, you can rest assured I was probably upset about the lack of government oversight.

9/5/2016 1:08:11 PM

anyone have any numbers on annual epi-pen sales? heard some politician bitching about how much they paid their CEOs and i'd like to know how much they could've lowered the price of an epi-pen if the CEOs had worked for free.

9/21/2016 6:45:41 PM

In the 3rd quarter of 2013 they sold around 915k 2-packs of epipens for sales of $219m in the retail market. That's about $236 per 2 pack. Mylan has said they've given away around 700k epipens for free to schools in the past 4 years. I don't know if this includes their discount card customers and others who can get it for free.

Mylan is not releasing overall sales numbers, and is lying in saying they are only making $50 per pen at current prices, yet have no problem charging half the price for the "generic" version which will be EXACTLY the same except for a label. They also sell single pens in Canada for $100.

It's all a huge scam.

9/21/2016 7:51:43 PM

It definitely is a scam. It's a government-sponsored monopoly. I'm just wondering if CEO pay is really what they should be pissed about.

9/22/2016 7:12:08 AM

If big government programs like the VA can negotiate their own prices for prescription drugs, why don't they do the same thing for other programs like Medicare? Seems like that would make a huge difference.

10/6/2016 5:24:37 PM

because they need the va to have a good image but giving medicare a good image would cost the pharmaceutical companies too much money. healthy people would be bad for the economy.

10/6/2016 10:39:18 PM

if healthy people are bad for the economy, one would think that getting more and more people insured would have a negative correlation with some key economic indicators. like maybe private sector job growth.

10/7/2016 9:48:21 AM

Yup, there's some correlation there. Zero causation though. The great recession officially "ended" in the second quarter of 09, lagging indicators like job growth started to catch up with other indicators around the beginning of 2010.

I don't think the ACA is a a job killer per se, but it's almost certainly going to destroy or cripple private insurers. That's why so many are pulling out of exchanges. It's almost impossible for them to remain profitable under the constraints required for participation in the exchanges.

Really the problem isn't that people lack insurance. It was people unable, for a variety of reasons, cost primary amongst them, to access health care. Insurance is just a mechanism to access care. You could always pay cash for health care. Insurance is just an easy way to finance your health care.

Unfortunately, because exchanges have caused insurers to run into the red and pull out, the ACA has not really solved the problem of health care being expensive. It never addressed the core issue, it addressed a secondary or maybe tertiary symptom.

10/7/2016 12:12:41 PM

Quote :

"It's almost impossible for them to remain as profitable under the constraints required for participation in the exchanges."

FTFY

[Edited on October 7, 2016 at 1:55 PM. Reason : .]

10/7/2016 1:54:59 PM

Quote :

"if healthy people are bad for the economy, one would think that getting more and more people insured would have a negative correlation with some key economic indicators. like maybe private sector job growth."

Insurance doesn't make sick people healthy, it keeps sick people alive longer so they can consume more medicine.

10/7/2016 2:07:12 PM

that's one way to look at paying for cancer treatments in little kids i guess

10/7/2016 2:22:47 PM

TO: The E Man

FROM: FroshKiller

SUBJECT: I hope you die screaming

10/7/2016 3:02:46 PM

you think its an accident that we are the least healthy country? You think its an accident that politicians "solved" our insurance problem in the most complicated way ever? You think its an accident that obama put food industry, big pharm, and big ag people in charge of all of the regulatory agencies like the FDA?

10/7/2016 3:21:41 PM

people who have expertise in fields leading fields. who woulda thunk it?

also, while we're not the healthiest country, we're far from the least healthy.

10/7/2016 3:54:20 PM

So you're saying you agree with revolving door politics?


nope. nothing wrong with this picture

[Edited on October 7, 2016 at 4:18 PM. Reason : worst in oecd]

10/7/2016 4:06:52 PM

I'm with Eman on this one, at least in large part. Our government has done things that have lead directly to horrific public health problems. The FDA demonizing fats while simultaneously pushing carbs as the basis for a healthy diet coupled with massive subsidies to corn and sugar have been the main primary drivers in the obesity epidemic. Our rates of heart disease and diabetes are off the charts compared with other developed nations.

The revolving door between industry and regulation is a huge problem not only in terms of cushy relations but also leads to regulations and legislation designed to weed out competition.

Our national health problem is more of an issue than our insurance/health care issues.

10/7/2016 6:33:30 PM

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-38153254

Quote :

"The man who sparked outrage last year by hiking the price of a life-saving drug may have met his match in some Australian schoolboys. US executive Martin Shkreli became a symbol of greed when he raised the price of a tablet of Daraprim from $13.50 (£11) to $750. Now, Sydney school students have recreated the drug's key ingredient for just $20."

Hope he burns in hell.

12/1/2016 1:38:51 PM

He's made his money, and doesn't give two shits. Will probably sell his shares off before any real impact can be made.

12/1/2016 1:51:02 PM

^^Again that article is just further proof of how ignorant people are to drug design and development.

12/2/2016 12:18:12 PM

banjoman, since you appear to be the de-facto big-pharma apologist, could you explain an increase such as this?

http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/18/news/drug-pricing-mallinckrodt-ftc-fine/index.html?iid=hp-toplead-dom

$40 to $34,000.

1/18/2017 8:10:52 PM

Never got an answer for ^

So it looks like remdesivir is running low, and the government has used almost all of its donated supply. Folks are worried that Gilead is going to jack up the prices.

All I have to say is that Gilead sounds like the name of an evil pharma company in the movies.

6/8/2020 9:18:40 AM

Probably a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balm_of_Gilead

[Edited on June 8, 2020 at 5:29 PM. Reason : -]

6/8/2020 5:29:30 PM

Quote :

"Now, Sydney school students have recreated the drug's key ingredient for just $20.""

If that was America, they'd be arrested for violating FDA rules then sued for violating the drug's Patent.

[Edited on June 8, 2020 at 9:52 PM. Reason : .,.]

6/8/2020 9:52:08 PM

I despise big pharma

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/10/health/fda-adviser-resigns-alzheimers/index.html

TL;DR - FDA member resigns over shaky positive results from an Alzheimer's drug that costs 56k/year.

56 fucking thousand dollars a year.

6/10/2021 8:28:24 AM

https://www.goodrx.com/blog/most-expensive-drugs-period/

Lots on the list that are > $500K a year.

6/10/2021 9:12:52 AM

Had no idea we had a treatment for progeria, but damn is it costly.

Is this a symptom of the drugs really costing that much in R&D? Or because they know they can get away with it with insurance paying the bulk of the cost? Kinda like college tuition - they know they can charge the ridiculous prices they do because loans will cover the costs.

6/10/2021 11:30:47 AM