Cash Cow or a Load of Bull?!!!
The Real Cost of Prescription Drugs
Dear Friend,
Not a day goes by in my office that I don't here someone complaining about the
high cost of prescription drugs.
Some have evolved elaborate schemes to get the most from their drugs plans. Some
send to Canada and other places to get their meds presumably cheaper. Some rely
on their doctors for continuous samples.
Some sadly just do without. It's a choice of eating food or eating pills!
I can't say that this is news to me and of course we do everything we can to help
our patients get their meds.
Lately however the behavior of the Big Drug Companies really frosts me.
The continued and endless and in many cases nonsensical combinations of drugs can
serve only one purpose.
To preserve the patents on the Cash Cows before the are scarified to the patent
laws.
Combining heart unhealthy calcium channel blocking meds (blood pressure) with
statins (lowering cholesterol and improved chances of not getting a heart attack
is a classic example.
Frankly I hope Pfizer falls flat on their derrière with this combination. It is
clearly meant to extend or create new patents on both drugs.
Reason: The blood pressure lowering drug is one of the biggest sellers in the
history of drugs themselves. The statin drug Lipitor is a $25 billion dollar
cash cow.
Next will be the pairing of Lipitor with Pfizer's as yet unnamed drug to raise
HDL cholesterol. This drug will only be sold with Lipitor not separately.
Look for a massive marketing campaign that stresses that this drug is
revolutionary but not so revolutionary that it should be used without its $100 a
month cousin Lipitor.
Somehow they'll have to undo all the press they've been saying for years that LDL
is the most important marker for heart disease, and that if your LDL is low
enough, your HDL doesn't matter.
I suspect they will use an argument something like this: Well, we never had
anything that would effectively treat low HDL, now we do so it's OK.
Nonsense! My Super Omega 3 compound, due to be released at the end of the summer,
has raised HDL's to the tune of 40+ points in some patients. And that is Not
combined with Lipitor or any other statin.
Oh by the way, if you have stock in the company that makes "Slo Release Niacin",
I'd get rid of it before the end of the year!
With flushing and liver toxicity as its main side effects, it is about to go the
way of the dinosaurs!
So lets now look at the actual money it costs to make Lipitor whose side effects
include Liver toxicity, Muscle poisoning and memory loss to name a few. This
does not include the soon to be recognized statin induced cardiomyopathy I talked
about with in the past week's email.
Here is the data: Consumer price for Lipitor/100 tablets=$272.37!
Actual cost to make the active ingredients= $5.88
Markup= 4,696%!!!!!!
How about Merck's cash cow Zocor?
Consumer cost/100= a whopping $350.27/100 tablets!!!
Actual cost of active ingredients= $8.63
Markup= 4059%!!!
I guess that makes Merck slightly more benevolent that Pfizer!!!
Now remember the combination of statin (Lipitor +Norvasc called Caduet)?
The consumer price for Norvasc is 188.29/100 tabs
The actual cost to make the active ingredients is 14 CENTS!!
Markup=134,493%
And clearly there is no end in site. As long as powerful campaign funding
lobbies are in place to allow these Big Drug Companies to get away with it, they
will continue to roll around in unconscionable profits like pigs in clover.
What a load of bull!
But we the consumers do have a choice. We can choose to stay healthy with
lifestyle and health giving supplements and avoid being the victims of these FAT
CATS!!
Best,
Dave Woynarowski, M.D., CPT
The Nation's #1 Anti-Aging Physician
P.S. For the worlds best anti-aging supplements including Dr Dave's Best
Pharmaceutical Grade Fish Oil go here and order now.
Don't delay; you are not getting any younger, YET!
