Monday, September 21, 2015

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.

3 comments:

  1. Funny thing...scorpion antivenin is made in Mexico and costs $100 per dose down there. A couple hundred miles north, a Tucson hospital charges $30,000 per dose. Why? Because you can't bring it from Mexico into the US, because the FDA, DEA and their Big Pharma Overlords say you can't. So much for competition in the cronyist cesspool that's replaced honest capitalism. >:(

    Dang it--just when I think we don't agree on anything, you throw out two posts in a row that remind me why I link to you. Hopefully, you're right about state governments choosing financial practicality over slavery to FedGov.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well CEB ....... as you pointed out (sort of), the price of a round of .45ACP seems to be a pretty good bargin, if not a cure .... just sayin'.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Our overlords want us to die. But only after we transfer all our money into their pockets.

    They may find out that Americans don't die easily or readily. Or maybe that was the old days. Maybe today's wimp Americans don't have the guts their forefathers had. Hmm...

    ReplyDelete

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