If Martin Shkreli is Not the Worst Person in the World, He's Certainly on the Short List

There's an old drug that used to treat a parasitic infection, the kind of infection that sometimes happens to AIDS patients. The drug, Daraprim, cost $13.50 a pill.

Or it did. Until Shkreli, a former hedge fund guy started a pharmaceutical company, bought the rights to the drug and jacked the price up to $750 a pill. And the asshole has the nerve to wonder why, all of a sudden, he's the living, breathing face of uncaring greed.

He's not the only greedy motherfuckering douchebag out there. Doxycycline, which is used to treat Lyme disease (BT,DT), went from $20 for a bottle of 500 to $1,849. That's a jump from 4 cents a pill to $3.68 a pill or, if you want, from less than the cost of a .22LR round to the cost of a .50 BMG round-- apparently, you can thank a bunch of greedy crooks operating under the name of Teva Pharmaceuticals for that.

At this point, it should be apparent that the difference between American pharmaceutical companies and the Mexican cartels is just a matter of degree.