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posted by
martyb
on Tuesday August 23 2016, @07:34AM
from the staying-alive-is-getting-more-expensive dept.
from the staying-alive-is-getting-more-expensive dept.
EpiPen's price has ballooned about 400% since 2008, rising from about a $100 list price to $500 today. The EpiPen is one of the most important life-saving medical innovations for people with severe food allergies—which affect as many as 15 million Americans and 1 in 13 children in the United States. But its price has exploded over the last decade despite few upgrades to the product itself. The product's lack of competitors is likely a significant driver of the costs. [...] [The] EpiPen enjoys a near-monopoly on the market with annual sales of more than $1.3 billion and nearly 90% U.S. market share.
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EpiPen's Price Increased 400% since 2008
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Logicians have but ill defined
As rational the human kind.
Logic, they say, belongs to man,
But let them prove it if they can.
-- Oliver Goldsmith
(Score: 4, Interesting) by anubi on Tuesday August 23 2016, @08:16AM
Its a friggen dose of adrenaline....
Five Hundred Dollars?!???! Isn't this highway robbery?
I guess this is the kind of stuff that happens when our laws protect artificial monopolies.
Adrenaline has been around for eons. Why isn't this generic?
Seems like this oughta be a standard by now. Look at the other things found in the dollar store. Including medications.
Google for the cost of the actual chemical. Epinephrine. I am getting 52 cents a dose.
If its the damn injector, I'll take it by the bottle and use an insulin injector. One buys those by the box for around $15/box of 100.
Why can't I buy a bottle of the stuff if I need it? Government! The very same people who said they would "fight for me"!
I note during the gas crisis a few years ago, our governments enacted law against "gouging". Where are those laws now?
I am really beginning to really hate all this IP law our governments keep passing. All these monopolies enforced by our own government really brings out the greed in certain people.
If some kid dies because he could not get fifty-two cents worth of chemical, I feel some Congressmen should stand trial for accessory to murder.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Tuesday August 23 2016, @08:51AM
It's beyond highway robbery. They might as well put a cocked gun to a child's head and demand money.
All based on the belief that nobody but a highly trained medical professional can manage such complex instructions as stick needle in, push plunger.
We claim to be an advanced civilization, but we sacrifice children to Mammon all the time.
(Score: 5, Informative) by anubi on Tuesday August 23 2016, @10:46AM
Now, I find this....
Equine Pharmacy (Rx) Sedation & Anesthesia (Rx)
Epinephrine 1:1000 by Generic (brand may vary)
Epinephrine 1:1000 50 ml - Item # 1278RX
Epinephrine 1:1000 is indicated for emergency use only in treating anaphylactic shock. Usual dose for cattle, horses, sheep, swine is 1 ml per 100 lbs. of body weight, given IM or SQ.
QTY EACH
1278RX 50 ml $20.99 6 @ $19.99
729RX 30 ml Call for availability
Please note that this item requires a veterinarian's prescription.
Three convenient ways to do that are:
Let us contact your veterinarian for prescription authorization.
Your veterinarian can contact us by fax/phone.
You can mail us the original written prescription.
Buy more and save!
Buy 6 Epinephrine 1:1000 (item 1278RX) and save!
Here. [google.com] Click on the Valley Vet link.
$20 for about 50 doses.
If your kid was a 100 pound horse, that is...
What has me so all fired worked up is this is the same chemical needed to save a kid's life !!!!!
But if the child needs it, hold the parents hostage for whatever they can pay, cuz they play this trick on the horse owners, they might fight back.
This whole thing is one of the most egregious examples of politician-enabled thuggery I have seen to date.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday August 23 2016, @05:45PM
It's worse than you think. Based on the human child dose (EpiJr), it's 333 doses for $20.
Add in a pre-loaded 1ml syringe and a plastic tube to protect it and you might be up to $3/dose. At that price, a lot of people who 'choose' to risk it would be a lot safer.
Further, it would be safer to use. Even doctors have been confused by the EpiPen's design and ended up injecting their own thumbs rather than the patient. With a syringe, it's obvious even to a small child which end goes in the patient and which end you press.
The healthcare industry is riddled with this sort of price gouging and people do die as a result.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday August 24 2016, @05:01AM
I talked to a friend who owns some livestock earlier today. I am still quite incensed over this subject, and asked him about his experiences with health maintenance of his livestock. He tells me epinephrinine is one of the cheapest chemicals in his medical arsenal for taking care of his animals. At least, if I needed some, I know where to get some.
But not everyone knows or has access to the workarounds needed to survive in our political and legal environment.
We discussed an asinine scenario, but went something like this...
A child, playing in the pool, gets into trouble.
A business professional, see a business opportunity. He has a pole. He could pull the kid out. However, he wants $500 for pole rental first.
A bystander, also seeing what's going on says: "To hell with all that tie-talk! Can't you see that kid's drowning?". He jumps into the pool to get the kid out.
The business professional, seeing his business opportunity vanishing right in front of him calls security over... "He can't do that! He is NOT trained! Protect MY business model! My trade group has Worked with Congress to Pass Law requiring Medical Certification to allow someone to do this!!!"
If the kid dies, should the Business Professional be held liable for murder? Should the security man forcing the "Good Samaritan" not to act be held liable for accessory to murder? Should the Good Samaritan be held liable, even if he did not get it right, trying to help because the kid could not at the time come to the business terms demanded by the business professional? Should the Congressmen who voted it into Law that someone else could not help be accessory to murder as well?
Seems only our Government can see this in a business sense.
I am a child of the 50's and remember Vietnam war very well. Our government had no problem compelling young men to surrender their LIFE to the draft. To protect someone else's business models. Yet they can't handle something like one of the cheapest medications out there not to be marked up to insane levels just because they got some Congressmen to pass laws saying only medical professionals are allowed to practice medicine, then those professionals use the artificial monopoly created by government for them to insanely charge for their services?
If I had to choose between not having the chemical at all ( by reason of sheer economics ), or having to use the one intended for livestock, I'll go for the latter. The farmer wants his animals to live too.
This is a problem created by men of the handshake, suit, tie, and dollar. They need to fix it. Why we continue to refer to these people as "the honorable" is a puzzlement to me.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25 2016, @03:16PM
Same reason men marrying female children was banned once women gained political power.
Messed up their biz model.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday August 25 2016, @06:40PM
Indeed, it is outrageous, and it goes well beyond just epinephrine. Most of the prescription drugs for sale in the U.S. today are priced orders of magnitude higher than necessary to turn a decent profit and people do die as a result. When desperate people tried to vote with their feet and wallets by ordering from overseas, a law was passed to prevent it. Now otherwise ordinary people are forced to criminal activity just to stay alive.
Others who were in a better position to tough it out chose to simply have nothing to do with the healthcare system in the U.S. so that too was outlawed.
The suits responsible are actually worse than the people who charge $50 for a bottle of water after a natural disaster (highly illegal anywhere that has seen a natural disaster in recent memory). They actually dry up the cheap supplies (cause the disaster) and then gouge.
They don't deserve respect, they deserve to be spat upon in the street.
We know this is a solvable problem because literally every other first world country has done so.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday August 23 2016, @06:18PM
$20 for about 50 doses.
If your kid was a 100 pound horse, that is...
What has me so all fired worked up is this is the same chemical needed to save a kid's life !!!!!
But if the child needs it, hold the parents hostage for whatever they can pay, cuz they play this trick on the horse owners, they might fight back.
Here's the deal, which I'm surprised no one has really explained on this thread yet. The high cost for the EpiPen is NOT for the epinephrine (which, as you point out, costs next to nothing). The cost is for the delivery system, i.e., the "autoinjector."
The patent over these things expired a while back, but the FDA has been dragging its feet in approving generics, because they require studies to demonstrate that the generic versions have the same success rate and are as easy to use. Still, there are generics on the market, and you can get your doctor to prescribe one. But many haven't received "official" approval yet. (And even then, the generics appear to be priced at greater than $100, which is still preposterous in my opinion.)
Of course, the clear solution is simply to buy the ampules of epinephrine [pbs.org] for about $5/piece (safer to buy individual doses rather than the bulk horse amounts you listed for people unaccustomed to measuring syringes in emergency situations), and a couple generic syringes.
Although there is a little more you need to know about injecting epinephrine directly than using an EpiPen, it doesn't require a "trained medical professional" as some people claim. Any reasonably competent person can be taught the proper procedure and warnings in 15 minutes, rather than the 2 minutes you learn to use an EpiPen. And you'll save many hundreds of dollars.
This is a SERIOUS medical and budgetary issue not just for individuals but for emergency services. If you read the link I gave above, you'll see a story about a Fire Department which spends 3% of its operating budget each year just to stock EpiPens. The amount just for one year could pay for EMT training for five firefighters.
What we really need is more physicians willing to take the time and teach patients proper injection procedures. If there's concern about dosing and handling ampules, it's very easy to create a case of pre-filled syringes (filled by a "medical professional" if you really want to take the extra safety steps), which will be chemically stable and sterile for at least 3 months.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday August 24 2016, @02:36AM
For all the harping some organizations do about the EpiPen being easier and safer to use, I just don't see it. It's too easy for someone to take the pen analogy too far and hold the wrong end against the patient's leg while pressing the "button" on top like you would a ball point. OUCH!
OTOH, I can't think of anyone who wouldn't immediately know what end of the hypodermic syringe to apply to the patient.
The people concerned for safety need to realize that the fair comparison for many is pre-measured syringe or nothing at all. The $700 auto injector isn't even a contender.