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Unfortunately, sadly, heartbreakingly so, there is a dire shortage of medication to treat Childhood Leukemia. … All five pharmaceutical companies that make the injection drug methotrexate, which treats acute lymphoblastic leukemia by slowing the growth of cancer cells, have either slowed and stopped manufacturing of the drug, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The companies have cited “high demand” or “manufacturing delays” as reasons for the shortage.
Where have we seen this before? In the oil industry. “Shut down that refinery until the price rises sky high.”
We have a shortage of life giving medication, one that is isolated to children, one that will tug at the heart-stings of parents.
There is no shortage of raw materials. There is no shortage of manufacturing space. There is no shortage of labor. There is only a shortage, because 5 major pharmaceuticals, all at the same time, chose “not to make” that certain drug….
Now according to Dr. Michael Link, pediatric oncologist and president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, some hospital pharmacies have reported having only a couple weeks of supply left.
Which means that kids start dying in 14 days…….
To counter this, President Obama on October 31, signed an executive order, instructing the Food and Drug Administration to broaden its reporting of potential drug shortages, expedite regulatory reviews that can help prevent shortages, and examine whether potential shortages have led to price gouging. The drug shortage has compromised or delayed care for some patients and may have led to otherwise preventable deaths.
This caused Christopher W. Hansen, president of the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network, to applaud the signing of the order, saying in a statement that it would “allow government, industry, providers and the public to more systematically analyze and understand the causes of specific drug shortages as they occur, and to develop real-time solutions that are also needed to address the acute problems that cancer patients live with daily.”
But the order does not go far enough.
While the FDA can oversee imports of drugs that are in short supply, it cannot regulate how much a company can make. In fact, manufacturers are not required to report shortages to the FDA.
Isn’t that what Romney touts? Isn’t that Gingrich’s modus operandi, Isn’t that what Santorum lavishs, WE NEED LESS GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION???
Don’t all of them recommend that government needs to slim down, cut back, and get off the backs of business in general to create jobs?
WELL…..
Here is a direct case of that policy in action. There is no government on the backs of Pharmaceuticals. They are completely independent, private, not regulated, and free to decided what drugs to make, and when to make them….
“Oh gee, let’s see… we make 89 cents per pill on our placebos…. and only 64 cents on each bottle of methotrexate…. Let’s close down the meth lab, and instead, make placebos instead….”
Mitt Romney’s philosophy in action…
Because of it, there is now a shortage of highly necessary medications… Ones that have to be had, to maintain life…
(There is no end to the number of Sudafed knockoffs on drugstore shelves)….
Just a look at the top ten prescribed medicines in America, only one, Lipitor, is still under patent. All the others, have lapsed into generic….
The apparent problem is rather simple. In order to chase after profits for your stockholders, for the analysts of CNBC to mention your stock on their show, … you have to sell the top 15 drugs helping 100% of the population, and the 4000 or 5000 people needing your specialty drugs, are simply sick with the wrong disease…
Remember the death panel controversy made up and disseminated by Michelle Bachmann? Well, now, we see the real death panel….
“I’m sorry (not). I know he is your child; I know we have the medicine to keep him normal, I know he will die if he doesn’t get it; I know we could easily makes some in less than 5 days; I know we could have never run short if we had wanted; I know all these things. But, we arbitrarily choose not to make it; your son is out of luck and will be dead in less than two weeks…”
Why?
Because you voted for Republicans…. Seriously, if you hadn’t, what would have happened?
In an all Democratic Congress, when this shortage was brought up, legislation would be passed levying extensive fines if the drugs did not reach market by a certain date. The price would include only a ten percent markup. Meaning the pharmaceutical company would not lose on the proposition. How do I know this would work? It was the law of the land for 70 years, until Republicans began selling the concept that letting the market place settle everything, and the FDA got gutted.
Interestingly,…. due to the shortage, black market drugs have materialized…. As soon as a drug hits a shortage level, unreliable distributors pop up offering supplies of suspect origin at highly inflated prices, said Denver based Porter Adventist Hospital pharmacy director, Ryan Stice.
Premier Healthcare Alliance, which published data on drug price-grouging practices last week, said nearly 2,000 sales offers from “gray market” distributors amounted to an average price markup of 650 percent for drugs used to treat cancer and other critical illnesses, as well as sedate patients for surgery, that have been in short supply in recent months.
When pressed, it appears there is little knowledge over where these “grey market” drugs come from. Most speculate that those drugs which are currently being dispensed on the “grey market” come with a majority of their kickback returning to the pharmaceutical companies. It was as if someone in the pharmaceutical business figured out: why sell this drug for $25 dollars when we can create a shortage and sell it for $1200 instead?
“Greed is good”, if you remember the movie Wall Street.
Ironically, the similarities between both Mitt Romney’s hairstyle and philosophy and those in that movie, are extremely uncanny.
If it is your son who is dying, obviously the market place is not where we want to take health-care. Their death panels are far more crooked than any other panel that would occur if we had any other system of medical insurance.
One must wonder why in any debate, not one panalist has yet brought up the question… “Mr. Republican, about your market philosophy…. when it comes to cancer drugs and others that are necessary for life,… there seems to be a problem….”
Then follow up with: “No, it appears you’re wrong there, Mr. Republican Candidate. The obvious solution is for America not to vote for any Republican candidate…”
Right click to open full image… Pictograph Courtesy of Viral..
So, can someone tell me again, why we shouldn’t tax the rich, and instead, balance the budget on the backs of everyone else?…….
I seem to be missing that little detail where that all makes sense……
It is such a great time. The cold front has passed, warm moist air flowing in, misty rain, not enough to get you wet, but enough to wake you up as it dances across the face. In it one can feel the snow coming two days early… For a weekend night, outside it’s peaceful… Those with money, have finished shopping. Those without, are waiting for that last check before the holidays…
The annual tradition of trading favorite YouTube’d carols over the internet, has begun in earnest… Strains of Mozart, Celtic Women, Cat Stevens, Bon Jovi, Metallica, and tons of favorite carols by assorted artists, have caused all the stress, pain, heart attacks, symptoms of short breathing,……….. to melt away somewhere into the distant future, as we float back into all those happier times as we remember fond memories of our past……..
Courtesy of All American Patriots
Courtesy of Pat Dollard
Courtesy of Theodore’s World
Things aren’t so nice for 100,000 plus Americans now fighting in Afghanistan. Things aren’t so nice for their families, friends, and lovers back home,… now that things have really heated up over there….
Take a second: Imagine you’re a Taliban fighting this foe invading from a very distant land. Imagine the hope, and shot in the arm a headline like this from the United States, would instill in you upon having it read to you. Imagine how quickly its words would resonate in your blood, and how less inclined you would be to throw in the towel against overwhelming odds? Imagine if you had rounds of waterproofed AK 47 ammo hidden in your well, how inclined you must now be to pull them up, and lay in wait for an American serviceman, any American serviceman, to come close enough to fire a killing shot.
That Headline….
Republicans Shoot Down $700 Military Appropriations Bill Funding War in Afghanistan. Bill Not Passed.
Republicans just aided and comforted our enemy…. Can you hear the Taliban cheering?
It’s the holiday season; I’ll be honest.
David Anderson: you served. How can you stomach supporting the Republican Party when they refuse to fund American servicemen in combat?
Frank Knotts: How can someone with your passion for all that America has stood for, still call yourself a Republican when they play games with Americans living and dying for our shared values?
Hube: What gives? Where is the line across which the Republican Party stops supporting America, and the Tea Party begins to represent the Conservative’s cause?
Tyler Nixon: How can any ex service man, support the party that is so self centered, they have no clue of how their vote to, not fund the war, emboldens our enemies?
Kilroy of Delaware: What kind of political party would play with funding for troops in active combat? How can that be tolerated?
Oh, well, it’s not skin off my teeth. It’s your party… do what you want. I don’t care… But I’ll tell you this… This nation needs a little old one horse Tea Party for this one reason alone: so conservatives have somewhere else to go without crawling on their knees to suck up to the moral backruptiveness of the Republican Party, that’s why…
Oh, well, I’ve said too much already. It’s not my problem. I just think that:
Our servicemen deserve better.
Conservatives deserve better.
Our republic, the United States of America, deserves better.
Conservatives: isn’t it way past time to switch your parties affiliation? It’s the holiday season! What better gift to your kids and grand-kids could you possibly give?
I love politics… I hate liars..
What Michael Steele says about jobs being lost under Pelosi is simply not true….
Courtesy of Wall Street Journal
Democrats Hire: Republican’s Fire…
There is no better way to express it…
Unless it is with this fact…
The only decade ever in the History of the United States of America to have less people working when it ended than it did when it began, was the Republican decade, when we gave them the Senate, the House, and the Executive Branch.
The only decade ever! This group of Republicans has done more to lose jobs, than any other group of Americans.
It is easy to see why.
Here is a chart showing those taxes Michael Steele is discussing. It is a comparison between the Bush Tax hikes and the Obama Tax Cuts.
Courtesy of Wall Street Journal
It turns out that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire will only hurt people earning more than $300,000 per year. And it appears as if keeping the Bush tax cuts in place would force people earning $60-150,000 to pay slightly more.
So contrary to Steele, firing Pelosi hurts the middle class.. Firing Steele, would the the best thing this country has ever done.
Cutting taxes for the wealthy simply doesn’t help anyone… If it did, we’d all have jobs right now, with raises…
Again, what works is taxing “excessive” income… I emphasize “excessive” That forces you, if you happen to be one of the lucky few in that category, to hide your income by burying it back into the economy where it creates even more jobs…
Taxes need to be fair…
Why should those earning billion dollar bonuses off your money, be taxed less than you?
Sorry Michael Steele.. Your going against all factual knowledge, when you say as the News Journal reported: “Need a job? Fire Pelosi.”
Better for us that you be gone, along with Urquhart and O’Donnell. Even the Wall Street Journal says so.
kavips 