This crying mother can’t afford the $1000 for her son’s insulin.
📌yet, it only costs pharma $5 to produce.
📌Insulin was invented 100 years ago by Fred Banting—who donated patent for $1 to make it free for all.
Let that sink in.
2) Insulin is one of the most disgusting cases of price gouging ever.
America has long taken a free market approach to pharmaceuticals.
Drug companies haggle separately over drug prices with a variety of private insurers across the country...
3) “Meanwhile, Medicare, the government health program for those over age 65 — it’s also the nation’s largest buyer of drugs—is barred from negotiating drug prices. That gives pharma more leverage, and it leads to the kind of price surges of EpiPens, opioid antidotes, & insulin.”
4) In 2018:
Johnson & Johnson CEO made $30M
Pfizer CEO made $28M
Merck CEO made $18M
Eli Lilly CEO made $16M
Gilead CEO made $16M
Meanwhile:
📌Americans spent $535B on Rx drugs
📌1/4 of diabetics rationed insulin to survive
📌500K Americans went bankrupt from medical bills.
5) What’s the right price patients should pay for medications? ZERO dollars, because no copay ==> more patients get their medicine ==> saves lives and saves money. Copays decrease adherence, and copays hurt patients who actually need them.
6) Yet, America has the highest rate of skipping drugs -- 1 in 6 patients!!! It’s shameful how much Americans have to skip their prescription medicine compared to other countries that pay much less and have zero copays. nytimes.com/2019/11/11/ups…
7) Not just insulin, parents of kids with allergies are forced to shell out $600 for EpiPen because it is a matter of life and death. Here is a dark story about Mylan, the EpiPen maker who pharma jacked up the price from a few $ to $600.
8) First, Mylan didn’t even invent epinephrine, which is simply our human hormone, better known as *adrenaline*, packaged into an 💉 injector (not some wild invention), invented by scientists paid by taxpayers. But big pharma gets to hold parents of kids with allergies hostage.
9) Even worse, Mylan was also recently ***criminally charged*** by Department of Justice for outright fraudulent EpiPen billing, and fined $465 million for its corruption.
BREAKING—We are out of vaccine reserves! Trump HHS Sec Azar announced this week that the govt would begin releasing #COVID19 vaccine doses held in reserve for 2nd shots—but no such reserve existed!! Trump HHS had already shipped out reserves end of Dec! washingtonpost.com/health/2021/01…
2) “Now, state and local officials across the country are realizing their limited vaccine supply will not immediately increase, dashing hopes of dramatically expanding access for millions of people.”
3) “Health officials in some cities and states were informed in recent days about the reality of the situation, while others are still in the dark.
The Brazil 🇧🇷 Manaus #COVID19 epidemic is getting epically worse. And many scientists suspect it might be because of the new Brazil P1 variant of #SARSCoV2, which has many multiple mutations. Quick thread 🧵 theguardian.com/world/2021/jan…
2) Brazil has been hit really hard already. In Oct 2020, someone estimated Manaus 🇧🇷 already have hit potentially 76% already infected — some saying it’s basically been plowed so hard, it’s now at herd immunity levels (getting there the dangerous way). science.sciencemag.org/content/371/65…
3) yet suddenly mortality is suddenly spiking again after a period of relative flatness. And Manaus is even skews younger than other areas. So this is odd.... reuters.com/article/us-hea…
BREAKING—Federal prosecutors in TX charge AF (Ret) Lt Col Larry Rendall Brock Jr. who stormed the Capitol carrying plastic zip-tie handcuffs. “He means to take hostages. He means to kidnap, restrain, perhaps execute members of the U.S. government”. apnews.com/article/capito…
2) On the day do the Capitol Siege, he said “Patriots on the Capitol. Patriots storming. Men with guns need to shoot their way in.”
3) White privilege: the judge released him meantime to home confinement with “limited internet”. 🤦🏻♂️
TRUMP RULE TO OUST CAREER SCIENTISTS—Last ditch effort by Trump WH to enact term limits and mandate “5 year reviews” for career US govt scientists (like Fauci) so they can be removed or reassigned by political managers. Disgusting but true to form. politico.com/news/2021/01/1…
2) “Current and former officials say the last-minute rule could tempt top public health officials to maintain their jobs through political jockeying, at a time of cratering public confidence in agencies’ independence.
3) ““It’s been a step-by-step escalation in retaliation by HHS against career scientists throughout the pandemic,” said a current senior administration official, blaming HHS Secretary Alex Azar for the last-minute moves. “It’s a clear abuse of power by Azar.”