Posted on 08/25/2016 12:01:52 PM PDT by amorphous
We have been following the latest melodrama involving a "greedy" Mylan, and numerous "humanistic" US politicians, all the way up to the Democratic presidential candidate, exchange blows over the company's dramatic price increases of its EpiPen anti-allergy medication, with a healthy dose of amusement for one simple reason: if Congress wants to crack down on someone, it should crack down on itself.
After all, the only reason Mylan has been able to pass the kinds of price increases that Congress is now blasting it for, is because of US laws and regulations; laws which incidentally, have been determined in Washington's backroom bribe parlor, i.e. the corner offices of thousands of local lobby organizations dispensing with billions of dollars in "client" funds.
Clients such as the companies listed below.
Which brings us to this question: dear Congress, have you received millions in lobby dollars from the US pharmaceutical industry.
Or perhaps Congress denies that virtually every single pharmaceutical company operating in the US has spent millions on influence peddling pardon lobbying, in recent years? Perhaps, just like in the case of the Clinton foundation defense, that money was not used to buy favors and influence legislation, but was purely for humanitarian reasons?
So how much money has the US pharma industry spent? According to OpenSecrets, so far in 2016, the amount is $129 million, rising to $2.3 billion over the past decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
“....if Congress wants to crack down on someone, it should crack down on itself.”
Hahahahahahahahaaaaaa... oh, that’ll be the day!
Well it won’t matter if no one reports it. The MSM is in the tank.
How come, with this much money involved, we see NO competing companies marketing their own products?
Does the FDA, in its infinite power to prevent (anything) from reaching the market, have fingers in this?
Honest people would like to know.
I thought the time limit of a patent was only 7 years. Is there some reason why some drugs which have been on the market for decades are still overpriced and without generics?
Pharmaceuticals are a tightly protected industry. China could easily have these things on alibaba for three bucks a pop with free shipping.
It’s interesting to note that epinephrine has been around for a long time as well as the syringe. Even auto-dosing syringes have been around awhile, diabetics often use them. There is no new technology here that isn’t just derivative of prior work, so it should be available to manufacture for anyone willing to make it, free of legal encumberances. The thing that stands in the way is government approval e.g. the FDA etc.
Patents normally run for twenty years. It used to be 17 years.
Six months is added if a drug is involved and testing for child usage is done.
Patents are also extended because of FDA processing delays.
“Is there some reason why some drugs which have been on the market for decades are still overpriced and without generics?”
The vultures have experts search out drugs with limited markets and only one supplier and with no viable substitutes. The vultures buy the drug and then the prices get raised big time.
The federal government gets a cut of the greed via the IRS.
It is only when the greed becomes unbearable that Congress will pretend to care.
I want to see how much the MSM big wigs and their companies donate to the left.
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