Federal agents have arrested 32-year old pharmaceutical company CEO, Martin Shkreli, who successfully jacked up the price of a single Big Pharma pill from $13.50 to $750. But it seems this gouging of Turing Pharmaceuticals’ anti-infective drug, Daraprim, by 5000% was not Shkreli’s only crime. He now faces charges on securities fraud linked to a firm he founded.
Zahara Heckscher, a breast cancer patient who was wearing a t-shirt that read, “I Have Cancer. I Can’t Wait Years,” and holding a hospital drip pole that read “TPP: Don’t Cut My IV” was arrested in Atlanta, Georgia after allegedly ‘disrupting’ negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the probable drug price gouging that will occur should certain provisions in the trade deal pass through legislation.
Pfizer, a Monsanto spin-off company, has announced that it will purchase Allergan, the makers of Botox and other drugs in a $160 billion dollar deal. Many argue that the move would create the largest drug company on the planet. It is likely a tactic to move Pfizer’s headquarters overseas to avoid paying US taxes.
The biotech industry has taken a beating lately, and this is evident in Monsanto’s numerous actions of late. The company has closed 3 research and development sites, laid of thousands of workers, and their stock prices have been plummeting.
Americans already pay more for pharmaceutical drugs than almost any other nation, and we also take the lion’s share of them, though our overall health as a nation is relatively poor. Do we really need a Big Pharma insider as the chief of the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA)? That is just what may happen.
Someday, couch potatoes may be able to swallow their exercise rather than having to engage in physical activity. Is this something we should really be striving for?
Researchers have found 1,000 molecular reactions to exercise, clearing the way for drug treatments that actually mimic the effects of exercise. The scientists have created a “blueprint” of these reactions. [1]
Seniors represent only 13% of the population, but they take over 40% of pharmaceutical drugs in the US. In the UK, 45% of prescriptions are doled out to individuals over the age of 65 years. The practice of polypharmacy has never been more acute than it is in the modern era. So why are we drugging the elderly so profoundly?
Antipsychotic drugs are being prescribed to an ever-increasing number of adolescents and young adults, and many of them are being prescribed for off-label purposes. But these over-prescriptions are putting youngsters at risk, though we’re slow as a society to change our med-heavy ways.
These powerful medications are being prescribed to young people with attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a condition the drugs are not approved to treat.
This week the media has gone all out to celebrate FDA approval of a new drug that promises to manage low libido in women. Of course this drug has the usual list of hair-raising side effects, which begs this question: since there is an inexpensive, readily available natural alternative that has no side effects and actually enhances other facets of health along with treating low libido, why don’t we hear anything about that?
This week, a pharmaceutical company called Sprout Pharmaceuticals may win approval for the first ‘female Viagra’ drug to boost women’s sexual desire. [1]
