In 2015 there was a dramatic increase in the cost of the drug Daraprim. Martin Shkreli, CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, increased the price from $13.50 per tablet to $750 per tablet — a 5,000 percent jump — the New York Times reported. is the only medication for treating toxoplasmosis, an infection contracted from cat parasites that can cause birth defects. It is also used as a co-treatment for HIV infections, some cancers and malaria.
Recently, Heather Bresch, CEO of the pharmaceutical company Mylan and daughter of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) engaged in a similar form of price gouging by raising the price of her company’s primary product, the Epipen, by 500 percent. The Epipen is used to administer epinephrine-which is used to treat life-threatening allergic reactions. Since Mylan bought the rights to the drug in 2007 prices have risen from $100 per pack to $600 dollars for the same pack of two devices. It has been reported that Bresch lobbied so hard and so well for Mylan that she was rewarded with a position at the company. According to ABC news, Bresch earned $2,453,456 in 2007, the year of the EpiPen acquisition. In 2015, Bresch’s total compensation was $18,931,068. That amounts to a more than 600 percent increase in compensation for this glutinous CEO.
Think about the beneficiaries of these medications; the helpless. Babies in the womb, poor brown people not privileged enough to live in better conditions, and those born with vulnerable immune systems are being marginalized even more than they already were by fate. The drive for profit and personal gain supersedes the motive of philanthropy.
Big pharma is much like the Industrial Prison Complex and the war profiteers and the health industry as a whole generally speaking. These organizations thrive on despair. The relentless pursuit of a larger profit is inherently contradictory to the concept of collective advancement.
These are just two blatant examples of why a not-for-profit model must be established in this country immediately.
There are many who say that industries should be allowed to regulate themselves.
Could there possibly be a need for any more evidence to show the negative effects of self-regulation from these entities?
Why can’t we come to the conclusion that there are some things that should be exempt from the Profit Model?
The industries of this world have put an estimated worth on each of our lives and have continually sought to divided that total among themselves.
You are either a part of the industries or you are not.
Personal pain should never be the avenue to personal gain.
