Free Republic

The latest $1.9 trillion stimulus package that was passed and signed into law includes a policy that will directly temper rising healthcare costs for some Americans. The provision, supported by President Biden, caps the proportion of income Americans can be charged for health insurance premiums through the Obamacare exchanges. The unintended consequences of injecting more government into healthcare are well documented and should trigger skepticism, but the goal of taming runaway prices is laudable. Americans currently pay some of the highest medical costs in the world. Rather than applying even more government controls to the system, Biden and Congress would...

Here is the data of the application of Pfizer Covid19 new vaccine. When scaling up the data on a global level the implications are disastrous for the world. Action needs to be applied by whom ever to make an immediate decision to stop this failed vaccine application. FROM THE CDC; 3,150 people vaccinated in ONE DAY are "unable to perform normal daily activities, unable to work" after vaccination. This is a massive 2.7% of people who can no longer work after having the Pfizer vaccine. Portuguese health worker, 41, dies two days after getting the Pfizer covid vaccine as her...

A former Bloomberg News reporter quit her job, divorced her husband, and froze her eggs for imprisoned former CEO Martin Shkreli Christie Smythe, 38, broke the news of Shkreli's arrest on fraud charges in December 2015 Shkreli, known as the 'Pharma Bro,' is apparently now refusing to talk to her Shkreli, 37, gained notoriety after his company raised the price of an anti-parasite drug from $13.50 to $750 Smythe claims she and Shkreli started dating after he was incarcerated in 2018 In a statement, Shkreli told Elle that 'Mr. Shkreli wishes Ms. Smythe the best of luck in her future...

This looks scary...

The president of local biotechnology firm GenPhar is accused of defrauding the federal government out of at least $3.6 million the company received to research vaccines against deadly diseases. The charges are contained in federal indictments unsealed today that also accuse GenPhar president Jian-Yun Dong and his estranged wife of making at least $31,000 in illegal campaign contributions to U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and his political action committee. Dong, who also is chief executive officer of GenPhar, is accused of submitting false claims to federal agencies, converting grant funds to his own use and committing wire fraud to scam the...

When the Trump administration gave a well-connected Republican donor seed money to test a possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology, it noted the company's “manufacturing facilities” in Charleston, South Carolina. Plasma Technologies LLC is indeed based in the stately waterfront city. But there are no manufacturing facilities. Instead, the company exists within the luxury condo of its majority owner, Eugene Zurlo. Zurlo's company may be in line for as much as $65 million in taxpayer dollars; enough to start building an actual production plant, according to internal government records and other documents obtained by The Associated Press. The story of how...

Eastman Kodak company dey port from producing photography film to production of medicine. Di 131 years old company bin dey number one position for di manufacturing of film wey dem dey take snap photo for many many years. Di camera company and photography giant fail to cross enta di 21st century era of digital cameras, even though na dem invent di first digital camera for 1975.

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:Section 1.  Purpose.  One of the reasons pharmaceutical drug prices in the United States are so high is because of the complex mix of payers and negotiators that often separates the consumer from the manufacturer in the drug-purchasing process.  The result is that the prices patients see at the point-of-sale do not reflect the prices that the patient’s insurance companies, and middlemen hired by the insurance companies, actually pay for drugs.  Instead, these middlemen...

Fifth Company to Admit It Fixed Prices of Generic Drugs Taro Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. (Taro U.S.A.) has been charged for conspiring to fix prices, allocate customers, and rig bids for generic drugs, the Department of Justice announced today. A two-count felony charge was filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, charging Taro U.S.A. with participating in two criminal antitrust conspiracies, each with a competing manufacturer of generic drugs and various executives.     The Antitrust Division also announced a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) resolving the charges against Taro U.S.A., under which the company agreed to...

Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Inc., USA was charged for conspiring to fix prices for generic drugs, the Department of Justice announced today.The charge, filed today in the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, alleges that Glenmark conspired with other generic drug companies, including a company with its principal place of business in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and Apotex Corp., to increase and maintain prices of pravastatin and other generic drugs beginning in or around May 2013 and continuing until at least in or around December 2015.  Pravastatin is a prescription medication that reduces cholesterol, helping to prevent heart attacks and strokes.  The...

Puerto Rico’s finances are strained, and the U.S. is too dependent on China for pharmaceuticals. These distinct issues may seem unrelated, but they are very much intertwined. Puerto Rico was once America’s medicine cabinet, and it could be again. During the second half of the 20th century, it developed from one of the poorest places in the hemisphere into a manufacturing powerhouse. Through efforts to industrialize the island, U.S. manufacturers and the labor movement found common cause. Congress and Puerto Rico implemented several tax breaks for American manufacturers. One of them, enacted in 1976 and codified in Section 936 of...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AHNoLhLPpI

At a time when germs are growing more resistant to common antibiotics, many companies that are developing new versions of the drugs are hemorrhaging money and going out of business, gravely undermining efforts to contain the spread of deadly, drug-resistant bacteria. Antibiotic start-ups like Achaogen and Aradigm have gone belly up in recent months, pharmaceutical behemoths like Novartis and Allergan have abandoned the sector and many of the remaining American antibiotic companies are teetering toward insolvency. One of the biggest developers of antibiotics, Melinta Therapeutics, recently warned regulators it was running out of cash. Experts say the grim financial outlook...

Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals announced today that the company expects to pay $15.4 million in a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department after allegations that Questcor Pharmaceuticals, which Mallinckrodt acquired in 2014, had bribed doctors and their staff to prescribe an incredibly expensive drug. Two whistleblowers came forward in April to accuse Questcor of trying to boost profits for Acthar, a medication primarily for infants with seizures. Questcor raised the price of the medication by almost 100,000 percent (not a typo) from just $40 in 2000 to $38,892 today, despite the fact that Acthar has been on the market since 1952. Mallinckrodt...

U.S. states filed a lawsuit accusing Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc of orchestrating a sweeping scheme with 19 other drug companies to inflate drug prices - sometimes by more than 1,000% - and stifle competition for generic drugs, state prosecutors said on Saturday. Soaring drug prices from both branded and generic manufacturers have sparked outrage and investigations in the United States. The criticism has come from across the political spectrum, from President Donald Trump, a Republican, to progressive Democrats including U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is running for president.

MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va. — Thirty-seven hospitals in two states have filed a lawsuit in Marshall County against numerous opioid manufacturers, distributors, and several individuals. Stephen Farmer of law firm Farmer, Cline, and Campbell announced the suit, calling it the first of its kind in the United States, Tuesday afternoon. The complaint filed in court Tuesday claims evidence of a criminal conspiracy that has devastated West Virginia and “tens of thousands of its families.” West Virginia University Hospitals, United Hospital Center, and Charleston Area Medical Center Health System are among three of the largest hospitals to attach their name to the suit...

(snip) the key ingredients for so many essential drugs, from antibiotics and birth control pills to treatments for cancer, depression, high cholesterol and HIV/AIDS, are purchased from China, says Rosemary Gibson, co-author with Janardan Prasad Singh of a new book called "ChinaRx: Exposing the Risks of America's Dependence on China for Medicine." China has exclusive manufacturing agreements for drugs for anesthesia, cancer and HIV/AIDS, along with other medicines that "we use every day, not only in hospitals but in our own medicine chests," Gibson says, adding that China is now the world's only source of antibiotics (snip)

Gets paid to hook them, then paid again to UNhook them..?! Richard Sackler, whose family owns Purdue Pharma, the company behind the notorious painkiller OxyContin, was granted a patent earlier this year for a reformulation of a drug used to wean addicts off opioids. The invention is a novel form of buprenorphine, a mild opiate that controls drug cravings, which is often given as a substitute to people hooked on heroin or opioid painkillers such as OxyContin. (more at link)

The conventional wisdom coming out of the 2018 midterm elections is that President Trump is likely to be aggressively “checked” by the incoming Democratic House of Representatives. And, to some extent, that is clearly true, in view of the oncoming flood of investigations and possibly impeachment hearings for Trump and others. If nothing else, such actions are likely to prove a nuisance for the president, as well as a potential quagmire that could slow down his administration’s actions on any number of fronts.However, while Democrats are likely to try to tie Trump’s hands in any number of other areas, there...

We may now know the real reason that Christine Blasey Ford has come forward to stop Brett Kavanaugh from joining the Supreme Court. She feels that it will affect her wallet. She has written or co-written 8 studies on the abortion pill, known as RU-486, which contains the ingredient mifepristone and is sold under the name of Korlym. It is the one and only product sold by Corcept Therapeutics. Ford works for Corcept Therapeutics and promotes Korlym. Should that product be outlawed by the Supreme Court, the company would likely be out of business. That seems like a very powerful...