While agreed that "The Pharm" inflates it's prices like no one else on
the planet would dare, the figures below do not define what an active
ingredient is or how much sophisticated processing it takes to go from
those substances to the final product.
Some drugs are fairly easy to manufacture, some are REALLY hard, with quite
low yields and a lot of equipment involved.
A whole Research department might spend years developing a single drug only
not have it pass muster in those multimillion dollar triple blind tests, or
one that did pass, turn out to have unforseen dangers...and many more years
developing many more compounds that don't make to the tests...and that's
counting all the free research done by universities on the tax payers dime.
One success may have a hundred failures behind it that cost just as much as
that one success, then they only have a few years to recoup before everyone
starts copying it without paying ANY of the unseen costs. [Generics ]
If the generics are unreasonably high, that's an indictment of the
COMPETITION to the "Pharm"
Remember. Some drugs are easy to make and some aren't.
It's a gamble, a crap shoot and the house [Pharm] stacks the odds in it's
favor...unbelievable high to be sure, but the
"profit margin" is probably not 2000% to 21,000% on everything. [No
surprise at 1000% maybe ]
OK All that is on the sellers side of things.
Let's take a peek at the buyers side.
The question is: How much is all this worth to "you". [That's how much you
pay the "Pharm" or Generic copy cats, cost justified or not.]
Your body is a Pharmacopeia that manufactures and develops itself with
little research, few failures and no triple blind tests rejecting big
chunks of it.
You make copies of it ...for fun. [Hoping for an old age profit]
Materials cost?
According to uselessknowledge.com:
"When we total the monetary value of the elements in our bodies and the
value of
the average person's skin, we arrive at a net worth of $4.50!
"The U.S. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils invested many a hard-earned tax
dollar in
calculating the chemical and mineral composition of the human body, which
breaks
down as follows:
* 65% Oxygen
* 18% Carbon
* 10% Hydrogen
* 3% Nitrogen
* 1.5% Calcium
* 1% Phosphorous
* 0.35% Potassium
* 0.25% Sulfur
* 0.15% Sodium
* 0.15% Chlorine
* 0.05% Magnesium
* 0.0004% Iron
* 0.00004% Iodine
"Additionally, it was discovered that our bodies contain trace quantities of
fluorine, silicon, manganese, zinc, copper, aluminum, and arsenic.
Together, all
of the above amounts to less than one dollar!
"Our most valuable asset is our skin, which the Japanese invested their
time and
money in measuring. The method the Imperial State Institute for Nutrition at
Tokyo developed for measuring the amount of a person's skin is to take a naked
person, and to apply a strong, thin paper to every surface of his body.
After the
paper dries, they carefully remove it, cut it into small pieces, and
painstakingly total the person's measurements. Cut and dried, the average
person
is the proud owner of fourteen to eighteen square feet of skin, with the
variables in this figure being height, weight, and breast size. Basing the
skin's
value on the selling price of cowhide, which is approximately $.25 per square
foot, the value of an average person's skin is about $3.50."
"Profit margin"? Incalculable.
You set the price anywhere you like, from a suicidal zero to absolutely
priceless, regardless of what anyone else might think you are worth... with
an average materials fair market value of around four dollars and fifty
cents ....and every ounce of it a "byproduct of living".
Now that's what I call "cornering the market" by BEING the market.
The "Pharm" doesn't have enough competitors and those it does have may be
even less scrupulous.
"You" have NO competitors and the best commerce protection that ideology
can buy.
It's the only commodity that can be endlessly manufactured till the store
is STUFFED with surplus no one but a friend or relative wants decorating
their own house and still be considered worth anything at all.
Not sure where those that DON'T place ANY value on human life fit it, but
*so far*, they don't have the ability to increase it by making it rare
despite all the efforts being applied to that endeavor.
But they have, in fact, managed to increase how much we'll pay to keep it
as it is ....with hired armored scales patrolling the party balloon against
rogue pins.
While it may not be "right", this is how it is:
The Pharm and the Copy Cats are taking advantage of the inflated negative
value that the consumer places on the alternative.
If you think you are priceless and believe that buying the product
maintains that value, they get to agree with you with your full consent.
What "we the priceless" need is more people to haggle over the value we
place on ourselves, in essence, cheaper whores on more corners to satisfy
our desires [to stay alive] so the price of [so to speak] "screwing around"
on this planet, longer, will go down.
or
Get the *state* to set that price by hiring and controlling the "pimps and
hookers" we desire, for us.
["Desire" carries no connotations of right or wrong, only acceptable or
unacceptable consequence. ]
or
Forget about corners all together and please ourselves as best we can.
[The pimps and hookers will starve]
Trading one set of hookers and pimps for another set even less scrupulous,
doesn't quite get the job done. [A goodly chunk of the "alt" game...same
game, fewer rules. ]
What WILL get the job done [but won't ever happen ] is for people to own
their own desires and decide when being dead a little sooner [vs later ] is
better than being a slave to that desire in the mean-time.
Put another way: Only those who are willing to die, can afford to live free.
Everyone else is a slave. [Again: No connotations of right or wrong, only
acceptable or unacceptable consequence...sheer personal opinion]
In between the two extremes is: How hard are we willing to be whipped
before we run away, as the master we made tells us we'll starve if we
do? Does running to a different master accomplish anything?
It comes down to *faith in self * with the inescapable inevitable....
against..... *faith in saviours* selling hope of avoiding the inevitable
for a while longer...buying more time on credit with the interest rate set
by the speculating borrower.
Just who is it that builds that fence, how high, to climb??
What bank ever "made" you borrow anything?
Any bank will, of course, try to convince you that you -should- borrow.
On that note: Setting up Government run health care is a whole lot like
setting up the "Fed" to control the price of unbacked money by artificially
controlling the interest rate.
Is that cumbersome and inefficient? Sure.
Does it work? It smooths out the bumps on the road to ruin so you can
drive longer.
Hopefully, long enough to learn to fly.
Not a great way to be driving in this race to the outhouse, but, beats
"crash and burn" at turn three...certain DNF poopy pants.
The question is then: Do you want a "pit crew" or the D.O.T to change your
tires?
Could just quit racing and enjoy the summer scenery on foot for as long as
the leaves stay green. [You ....worthless Bum. No plasma TV with a high
cost extended warrantee for you, Dude.....or monthly payments to have a
heart attack over.]
Where are we racing "to"? [Hummmm]
Ode
At 08:36 AM 8/30/2007 -0400, you wrote:
I just received this information via email and figured it is imortant for
people to know about this. Faith
Sent: Friday, August 24, 2007 11:16 AM
Subject: Drug costs
> >? This is true: verified at:
> >?http://www.snopes.com/medical/drugs/generic.asp ?You can also go to this
> >website and get a comparison chart for different drugs at different
> >places...;0) ?
> >?
> >WalMart announced it is starting a new policy where all generic drugs
will
> >be sold for $4.00 per prescription in many states.
> >?
> >COSTCO! read this...
> >
> >Let's hear it for Costco!! (This is just mind-boggling!) Make sure
you read
> >all the way past the list of the drugs. The woman that signed below is a
> >Budget Analyst out of federal Washington , DC offices.
> >
> >
> >Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active
> >ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a
> >lot , since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a
search
> >of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients
found
> >in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed in past issues of Life
> >Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United States
> >contain active ingredients made in other countries. In our independent
> >investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, we obtained
> >the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular
> >drugs sold in America
> >
> >
> >The data below speaks for itself.
> >
> >
> >Celebrex: 100 mg
> >Consumer price (100 tablets): $130.27
> >Cost of general active ingredients: $ 0.60
> >Percent markup: 21,712%
> >
> >
> >Claritin: 1 0 mg
> >Consumer Price (100 tablets): $215.17
> >Cost of general active ingredients: $0.71
> >Percent markup: 30,306%
> >
> >
> >Keflex: 250 mg
> >Consumer Price (100 tablets): $157.39
> >Cost of general active ingredients: $1.88
> >Percent markup: 8,372%
> >
> >
> >Lipitor: 20 mg
> >Consumer Price (100 tablets): $272.37
> >Cost of general active ingredients: $5.80
> >Percent markup: 4,696%
> >
> >
> >Norvasc: 10 mg Cost of general active ingredients: $0.14
> >Percent markup: 134,493%
> >
> >
> >Paxil: 20 mg
> >Consumer price (100 tablets): $220.27
> >Cost of general active ingredients: $7.60
> >Percent markup: 2,898%
> >
> >
> >Prevacid: 30 mg
> >Consumer price (100 tablets): $44.77
> >Cost of general active ingredients: $1.01
> >Percent markup: 34,136%
> ; >
> >
> >Prilosec : 20 mg
> >Consumer price (100 tablets): $360.97
> >Cost of general active ingredients $0.52
> >Percent markup: 69,417%
> >
> >
> >Prozac: 20 mg
> >Consumer price (100 tablets) : $247.47
> >Cost of general active ingredients: $0.11
> >Percent markup: 224,973%
> >
> >
> >Tenormin: 50 mg
> >Consumer price (100 tablets): $104.47
> >Cost of general active ingredients: $0.13
> >Percent markup: 80,362%
> >
> >
> >Vasotec: 10 mg
> >Consumer price (100 tablets): $102.37
> >Cost of general active ingredients: $0.20
> >Percent markup: 51,185%
> >
> >
> >Xanax: 1 mg
> >Consumer price (100 tablets) : $136.79
> >Cost of general active in gredients: $0.024
> >Percent markup: 569,958%
> >
> >
> >Zestril: 20 mg
> >Consumer price (100 tablets) $89.89
> >Cost of general active ingredients $3.20
> >Percent markup: 2,809
> >
> >
> >Zithromax: 600 mg
> >Consumer price (100 tablets): $1,482.19
> >Cost of general active ingredients: $18.78
> >Percent markup: 7,892%
> >
> >
> >Zocor: /B 40 mg
> >Consumer price (100 tablets): $350.27
> >Cost of general active ingredients: $8.63
> >Percent markup: 4,059%
> >
> >
> >Zoloft: 50 mg
> >Consumer price: $206.87
> >Cost of general active ingredients: $1.75
> >Percent markup: 11,821%
> >
> >
> >Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone
> >should know about this. Please read the following and pass it on. It pays
> >to shop around. This helps to solve the mystery as to why they can afford
> >to put a Walgreen's on every corner On Monday night, Steve Wilson, an
> >investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit , did a story on
> >generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation,
> >that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or
more.
> >Yes, that's not a typo.....three thousand percent! So often, we blame the
> >drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But
> >in this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves. For
> >example, if you had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name
brand,
> >you might pay $100 for 100 pills. The pharmacist might tell you that
if you
> >get the generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you
think you
> >are "saving" $20 . What the pharmacist is not telling you is that
those 100
> >generic pills may have only cost him $10!
> >
> >
> >At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or
> >not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice,
and he
> >said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for the
> >generic drugs
> >
> >
> >I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any drug, and get its
> >online price. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the
> >online prices. I was appalled. Just to give you one example from my own
> >experience, I had to use the drug, Compazine, which helps prevent
nausea in
> >chemo patients.
> >
> >
> >I used the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS. I
> >checked the price at Costco, and I could have bought 10 0 pills for
$19.89.
> >For 145 of my pain pills, I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at
Costco for
> >$28.08.
> >
> >
> >I would like to mention, that although Costco is a "membership" type
store,
> >you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there, as it is a
> >federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that
you wish
> >to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in. (this is true)
> >
> >
> >I went there this past Thursday and asked them. I am asking each of
you to
> >please help me by copying this letter, and passing it into your own
e-mail,
> >and send it to everyone you know with an e-mail address.
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