Millions of Americans struggle on a daily basis to afford medicine in the United States which is the highest in the world. Many seek affordable drugs by driving to Canada or seeking medicine (as well as medical care) in India. Yet, one of the first things that President Obama did in the new health care law was to cave to a demand by the powerful pharmaceutical lobby to drop provisions guaranteeing cheaper medicine. The lobby then got Congress to block two measures to guarantee affordable medicine. With billions at stake, Congress and the White House again yielded to the demands of this industry, which is sapping the life savings away of millions of families. Given this history, many are concerned about a meeting planned between Obama and the Prime Minister of India. Public interest groups object that Obama is threatening retaliation against India in the hopes of blocking one of the major alternatives for families in acquiring affordable medicine. Congress has also again responded to industry demands for pressure in India to change its laws and, as a result, raise the cost of medicine. Doctors Without Borders, a highly respected medical group, has denounced the effort of the Obama Administration as threatening basic health care for its own citizens and those around the world.
Obama will meet with Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh this week at the White House to demand a change to its intellectual property laws. In addition to a long record of yielding to the demands of the pharmaceutical industry, Obama has also yielded to copyright and trademark hawks who has secured ever increasing criminal and civil penalties in the field. Here, the industry wants to cut off the supply of affordable medicine coming out of India due to its large generic drug industry. The industry is alarmed by the fact that India’s market is forcing the cost of drugs down for HIV, TB, and cancer by more than 90 percent.
Critics charge that Obama is basically reading from a script written by Pfizer and the industry in threatening retaliation if India does not change its intellectual property laws to limit the availability of generic drugs. There is no question that India’s legal system needs reform and intellectual property rules could be tightened. However, Doctors Without Borders insists that this is a raw effort to shutdown a country offering millions of people affordable medicine. If successful, the impact on the sick could be breathtaking if not life taking. Most AIDS drugs are generic and India supplies a huge amount of the HIV medicines.
The problem is that Indian courts have already supported the claims of Indian companies to produce such generics. For example, Novartis tried for seven years to block a low-cost generic salt form of the cancer drug imatinib, marketed as Gleevec. The Indian Supreme Court ruled that the company had every right to produce the drug and that the company, and by extension the U.S., was trying to impose effective monopoly pricing on consumers.
Likewise, a case involving Bayer shows how such inflated pricing works. Bayer lost an effort to block an Indian drug that slashed the cost of a kidney cancer drug by 97 percent. That’s right, 97 percent. Bayer wants to sell it as a cost of $4,500 per month.
Obama has increased the government paying for such drugs for the poorest Americans, but that healthcare deal still allowed drug companies to pull in windfall profits at public expense. Moreover, for middle income families, such costs (or the resulting higher insurance costs) have sapped away income at a time of diminishing wealth. The companies have a valid argument that some protection is needed to allow them to recoup billions in research to develop such amazing drugs. Intellectual property law encourage innovation by guaranteeing such profits that in turn encourage the investment in new research. However, with one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington (populated by former members and staff members who helped draft earlier laws), the drug industry has imposed obscene (and at times ruinous) costs on families who struggle to pay for life-sustaining medicine.
Doctors Without Borders is leading a campaign opposing Obama’s efforts to cut off the largest market for affordable drugs — a move that would leave families captive to the pricing set by these companies.
mespo, Smaller Tobacco is poised to become big again. They have purchased prime cannabis growing real estate in California and are ready to “roll out” cannabis cigs. The conflict between them and Big Pharma is beyond ironic. Who said there are no second acts.
What Mike S. and bfm said.
” No market is ever free and all will eventually lead to monopoly.”
Once you get past the rhetoric about freedom and liberty, the characteristics ascribed to free markets are usually characteristics of competitive markets.
Competitive markets do not necessarily survive under free market conditions without regulation because free markets offer many ways to manipulate the market.
Is any one surprised that OBAMA is going to give the pharmaceutical corporations anything they want eve if it means people die or live more painful less satisfying lives? Obama never cared about universal health care. He used it as a vehicle to get health care related corporations every subsidy they ever wanted and those corporations who were supposed to do more in terms of providing health care –well they have gotten waivers.
But don’t worry, Obama told the UN he is going to focus his last years as president on the worlds intractable ME problems. Apparently he has done all he can for our beloved corporations!
Reblogged this on Deo Optimo Maximo and commented:
Excellent and informative article. Enjoy!
Reblogged this on euzicasa.
“are public relations sops that will give back $15 on a drug [they charge $350 for, which costs them $10. Also as] Arthur [said above] most of their research was government funded.”
“The fact that people are going without medicine because they can’t afford it has very little to do with the pharma industry. Indeed, they are the ones who give away billions of dollars worth of their compounds every year in the form of samples and reimbursement programs.”
Gingerbaker,
As someone whose very life depends on prescription drugs you’re completely wrong. The sample program is accompanied with incentives for Doctors to prescribed their over priced drugs and their reimbursement programs are public relations sops that will give back $15 on a drug by Arthur most of their research was government funded. It is a rapacious industry that you defend.
As for Bron’s comment:
Errant nonsense. No market is ever free and all will eventually lead to monopoly. Please also don’t respond that you would be for regulation to enforce patents because in your “free market” economy there would be regulators to do so and if there were they’d be on the side of the most powerful. Bron your vision has some appeal that is eroded by the thousands of years of human history where the big fish eat the little ones…..etc. It makes for nice Utopian dreams, but the reality of the harshness of human hierarchies make it a fantasy. Figure out a way to keep sociopaths from controlling the world and then maybe you have a shot.
And in general our President who offered hope and change is just another Corporatist. So it goes.
Tell Obama to stop off in Kenya and see his family and ask their advice on this issue.
“Pharmaceuticals don’t have to compete in the marketplace, but can charge whatever they damn well please.”
Really? Seriously – you believe this?
You ever heard of the concept of a restrictive formulary? Every insurance company, every hospital, and the U.S. government has one.
It i SO easy to blame the Pharma industry for price gouging, killing kittens, and making angels cry. Quite another thing to acknowledge that this story, like most stories, might just have two sides or more.
How do you think India can sell cancer drugs for 3% of what an pharma company charges in America? Do you think just maybe:
“There is no question that India’s legal system needs reform and intellectual property rules could be tightened.”
has something to do with it?
Shall I translate that quote? It means that drug companies in India disregard patent laws and manufacture whatever they please. When China does that with videos, no one has a problem calling that “stealing”. But if the pharma industry is the bull being gored, they are “threatening basic health care”.
The fact that people are going without medicine because they can’t afford it has very little to do with the pharma industry. Indeed, they are the ones who give away billions of dollars worth of their compounds every year in the form of samples and reimbursement programs.
There are more nefarious villains afoot in this whole health care tragedy, believe it or not.
Ginger, when there is a natural monopoly such as electricity, gas, railroads, cable, TV and radio etc.. the government has the legitimate duty to regulate it in the interests of the whole community. That is why we have public utility commissions. This needs to be extended to medical procedures and pharmaceutical companies. They use a huge amount of government funded research in addition to their own which also vitiates any claim to sole source production and research.
When medicine was more guess and trial, health care was not so vital a concern since the results were not that great, and in many if not most cases, a patient would be better off not going to the doctor. Medicine is not a free market place since those who need it cannot do without it and have basically no choice at all.
I think it is only fair that since we allow doctors and other professions to regulate themselves, that we have a right to demand that they also meet the public good tests in having the community set or have a say in how much should be charged for those services.
of course he did.
And some people think free markets are evil? In a market where economic decisions are made by individuals, generic drugs would be available. Command economies are giving way in the third world in favor of market economies. Now if we can only convince the “intellectual” “elite” in this country.
Government and economics dont mix and the health care is going to suk worse than it does now.
Reblogged this on Brittius.com.
Executive Jobs!! The United States of America, Inc.is hiring every four years. Send inquiries for high level government jobs to Big Pharma, Big Oil, Not-So-Big-Anymore Tobacco, and Big Techno c/o White House, Washington DC.
From what I have read, much of the research that the drug companies use is government funded. So it seems to me that any drugs produced by using that research should be subject to government regulation and cost control.
From bribing,,err, lobbying pols on keeping cannabis illegal, to this horseshit, BIG PHARMA rules us and those we elect.
Trademark and copyright laws need to be revisited. Period. This is nothing more than economic protectionism. One of my friends, a psychiatrist, threw a drug rep out of his office once. Seems that one of the antidepressant makers had tweaked the drug by one molecule or so, and relicensed it as the replacement for the old one in order to buy more time before it could go generic. My friend ordered the drug detail man out of his office and told him not to come back. He refuses to write any prescriptions for that antidepressant or its progeny, and if there is an alternative, for anything made by that company.
The business of legislation forbidding the Medicare/Medicaid people from negotiating best prices with the drug companies is nothing more than an egregious form of protectionism under the color of law. Pharmaceuticals don’t have to compete in the marketplace, but can charge whatever they damn well please.
There are better ways to improve our national image in the world at large.
Disturbingly, it’s no longer a shock to see that elected ‘representatives’ would rather see people die than cut costs on highly inflated drug prices. After all, where else are these ‘representatives’ going to find millions in campaign contributions and a potential lobbyist ‘job’? Feed the wealthy and starve the poor. That was the GOP cry, but it also has many supporters in the Democrats portion of Capital Hill and the White House.
How delicious!! I can use my comment unedited for two posts today!! :o)
Randian Capitalism, He/She with the most water wins. Our capitalists simply remove the water from the commons.