(Snippets from the frontline)
Cost of Drugs
Pharmaceutical companies have a stranglehold on us. Medicare Part D was written by their lobbyists. Drugs developed decades ago have gone up 10 fold without new research or development. Potential treatment of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – Lou Gehrig’s Disease) will cost $146,000 per year.
The price of drugs contributes significantly to the overall rising cost of American healthcare. US citizens pay much higher prices than others around the world. Why? To offset the lower costs in other countries? Really? How about greed?
Don’t be fooled. We’ve been propagandized that overseas drugs are inferior to those distributed in the States, yet some of my patients travel to Canada and Mexico and get the same less expensive medication.
It is illegal to bring prescription medicine into the US or have it mailed.
Why not relax these laws and allow importation of drugs from foreign countries? Let Yelp and other crowdsourcing agencies validate overseas pharmacies and medication. Do we have to wait for the FDA while Congress protects the pharmaceutical industry?
Competition is needed. That is the American way.
Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.
Great comment on the cost of drugs and prescriptions in the U.S.! Thanks for alerting the public about this.
Hello and you are correct about the high cost of specialty drugs. In a more humble and common concern is the extreme markup in the last year such as suppository to treat hemorrhoids and many other common place medications.Last year the patient could buy that medicine for under ten dollars and now for the same drug the patient must pay over two hundred dollars.The media has focused on the owner of the company that makes the epi-pen allergy shot. Many pharmaceutical presidents should be prosecuted in an attempt to lower the costs of common drugs that are used daily.