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The Pharmaceuticals: Can You Put a Price on Life?

It would be a lovely thought to think that the pharmaceutical companies are completely here for us humans, wouldn't it? Not only would it be a lovely thought, but it'd be a reassuring one. A thought that wouldn't be able to compare with anything else. There is however, a disturbing thought. Many of them aren't out there to save lives; they're out there for money, and there's no arguing about it.

I'll admit, I've got stock in some of the big-name pharmaceuticals, one of which, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), which parks its world headquarters locally in New Brunswick. By passing their buildings, you might not have guessed that the pharmaceutical giant packs over 28 billion dollars in the bank. They call these companies the "blue chips."

The Johnson & Johnson world headquarters in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Why, you might ask? Why do I have stock in big and small name drug companies? Not because I believe in them scraping money from patients, but because they are indeed the companies hauling loads and loads of cash, daily. These companies know how much of us cherish life, and I must say, I very much do myself.

After being diagnosed with Crohn's disease at age 12 and 47 pounds, my life was saved. I had mass-infusions of nutrition, immune suppressant drugs, and a life-saving surgery to remove a good 11 centimeters of my small bowel. --Crohn's disease is a life-threatening gastrointestinal disorder which afflicts over half a million people in the US alone. Some side-effects include: chronic apathous ulcers, abdominal pain, joint pains, loose stools, fever, malabsorbtion of nutrients, and this then causes weight loss. Several theories of the cause of the illness include: a bacteria or virus, genetically passed, and poor environmental surroundings. The illness is incurable.

So since then I've taken many, many drugs. I stopped counting after the second week I was in the hospital during my diagnosis, but I can say I've memorized a good number of pages in my Prescription Drug book. I can't think of anything in my mind to express my gratitude for being alive today. Those drugs that the pharmaceuticals manufacture saved my life.

The American Fight:

To emphasize the ridiculousness of the price of the drugs is not a challenging task. One of my medications, growth hormone, costs more annually than it does to attend a highly-ranked University, room & board, for an entire year. It cost more than $40,000/yr for my growth hormone, and much of that I don't pay myself because I have health insurance. Now, growth hormone isn't necessarily a drug that you'd need to stay alive, because it just helps you grow, right? Wrong. New reports now show evidence that growth hormone has helped keep Crohn's in adolescents in remission for great periods of time. But if you're like me, out of drug solutions, and have one drug left to try but can't pay for it, who will?

The Pharmaceuticals: Not-guilty?

The pharmaceuticals can afford to make sales attempts to consumers in 66% of the commercial time during prime-time television. Have you ever sat at your television set lately during the news hour and seen endless commercials to either "break the barrier" of your sex life or perhaps "celebrate, celebrate" because your going to take this company's new drug for arthritis and make them billionaires?

If a patient doesn't receive a drug due to financial constraints, it's almost always blamed on either the health-care company or the government, but think again. Who has the ability to charge whatever they wish for a given drug? It is understandable that the pharmaceuticals want some sort of payback for newly introduced "blockbuster" drugs. They should be refunded for extensive research and development (R&D), and they should be rewarded (somewhat) for their efforts towards making our lives better through medicine. But the lingering question that still stands is: How much compensation is too much? As much as the pharmaceuticals claim and seem to be out of the picture, they are simply too far in the picture. They are the root of the problem--their drugs are too expensive. Expensive. Cash. Dollars. But life?

The Health-Care Companies: Not Guilty?

It is somewhat understandable that the health-care companies reject some treatments because they are tremendously overpriced. But what exactly happens to those who are uninsured, or have health-care companies that find just about any reason to get out of payment for medical necessities? Many cannot pay for the very same drugs many of us get paid for by health insurance. I've been in that situation before. What did I do? I was fortunately able to get The Home News Tribune to put great pressure on my health-care company. They later declared bankruptcy, and I switched insurers. Many patients who have Cancer need the most up-and-coming drugs to stay alive, but many health-care companies say "nope," even when they have the profitability to fund the care.

The Government: Not-guilty?

Senior citizens throughout America cannot pay for their prescription drugs. It was blown up as a priority issue in the Presidential debates, but what happened after Bush became president? Why are we cutting money out of the government before we save all lives that can and wish to be saved?

What about a patients' bill-of-rights? The government has the authority to decrease the number of legal loopholes that the health-care companies use to say "no." Doesn't the government have any obligation to assist people in these situations?

It is unusual and nerve-racking to think that such an enconomically-advanced country like America still is not able to put ethics first, and get all necessary drugs to patients, under any circumstances.

The International Fight:

If it's unthinkable for Americans to have health-care battles because of ridiculous legal loop holes, disgustingly priced medications by pharmaceuticals, and a government that quite frankly, can get its priorities straight. While America sets an unconvincing example of how the health-care system should be run, what about other parts of the world?

Let's travel to Africa for a moment. Africa. Where 39 pharmaceuticals are currently going to court to protect their money-oriented drug patents for Aids drugs. Where Time Magazine reports one person dies from the AIDS virus every 25 seconds.

By the time you're finished reading this, your whole family could have died; imagine that. ABC's World News Tonight recently reported that there are 5,500 burials a day in Africa due to AIDS. They visited hospitals with 75% of the patients HIV+. Patients in their hospital beds, literally staring into darkness, with no signs of hope.

More than 25 million souls that are helpless and hopeless for good reason. World News Tonight can report on such a topic so nonchalantly, by reporting on the Air-Force's latest fighter jet before perhaps one of if not the biggest problem in the world: the Aids crisis. They treated the topic as if it was less important than seeing how a B52 Bomber is flied. Why wasn't it the top story?

The report did mention the lack-of cooperation from the pharmaceuticals, but it didn't emphasize the severity of the situation. I tried to go to their web site and the only part of the story I found was "Merck Leads New Round of AIDS Drug Price Cuts." Sure, big networks glorifying the long-awaited ethics of the powerful drug companies.

What About Ethics?

How dare the pharmaceuticals let these Africans die like this? They're not providing legitimately priced drugs, and even more sickening, going to court to prevent Cipla--an Indian manufacturer of generic Aids drugs--from manufacturing and selling HIV drugs at a substantially lower price.

Medical ethics in this country are off the wall. Drug companies coax tons of physicians to use their drug as opposed to another drug so they make the cash. The payback: Practically anything the physicians want, even cash. US News & World Report's story: "Prescription Drugs: Behind the High Prices" mentioned that drug reps, ads, and patient vulnerability are hauling in over $120 billion dollars annually.

Not too long ago doctors from Washington State reported that they now do not allow drug reps into their clinics. They said that it is inevitable to not prescribe the representatives' drugs instinctively. One doctor mentioned that it was "easy to influence (our) prescribing habits."

And the ads...

They work according to US News. Allergy patients made 13-14 million doctor visits between 1990-1998. In 1999, they number jumped to 18 million as Schering-Plough's allergy medication "Claritin" was advertised more times than the soft-drink, Coca-Cola. The result of the ads: a 21% sales increase for the drug giant. Was it a bad year for pollen? Yeah, right.

I met this amazing counselor last summer who worked to help children with disabilities. She told me she took a medical ethics class at college, and one student said his father teamed up with a pharmaceutical to prescribe their drug in exchange for a pair of New York Knicks season passes. How sick does this get? Moreover, how do you assure yourself that your doctor is maintaining his/her ethics?

The giants pour money into research of the major illnesses so that when that cure is found, it's payday. But for illnesses like Crohn's, which doesn't affect as many people as more wide-spread diseases...forget research; they just quietly think "show me the money." And if Crohn's isn't going to "show them the money," most drug companies usually aren't interested.

The pharmaceuticals want to look like big, warmhearted fellows when quite frankly, right now they're not. They're too caught up in the money and politics and not the purpose. Can you even start to compare money and life? They're two separate things. Just like apples and oranges shouldn't be mixed, neither should they. I say get over the cash and start saving peoples' lives. Give the drugs to the Africans for free and stop going to court to stop your competitors from lowering their prices. We all acknowledge the interminable efforts put forth by the drug companies to better the lives of humans, but can you put a price on life?

-Gideon Sofer

How to help:

If you'd like to take action, an organization by the name of Doctors Without Borders (DWB), has created a web site to help people of various countries around the world (primarily in Africa) obtain drugs to treat severe conditions.

DWB is an organization which provides countries in crisis with medical care from trained physicians and nurses. All medical positions in these crisis countries are strictly voluntary. DWB won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999 for their efforts towards assisting many requiring instant medical attention, regardless of the country in which they were. For many years the political question was always "how do you get drugs properly administered to patients in Africa (even if the pharmaceuticals provide it)?" Finally, such an incomparable humanitarian effort is being performed, yet the pharmaceuticals balk and refuse to lower costs; while people with Aids continue to die and volunteers continue to risk their lives entering these ultimately dangerous countries. You can find more information @ www.doctorswithoutborders.org & www.accessmed-msf.org

We should note that since Gideon wrote this editorial, the drug companies have officially dropped their case against the South-Aftrican government. Nevertheless, absurd drug prices continue to exist throughout Africa and other third world nations. The bottom line is that no person living in the world today should have to die due to lack of money to purchase proper medical care, and this is what motivated Gideon to write this editorial.

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