Tag: Big Pharma

Did you Vote for Change?

for Accountability; for leveling the playing field; for National Health Care?

Well, your vote apparently doesn’t carry as much weight as it use to.

Here’s one of the main reasons why:

U.S. Democracy Under Siege — Senate Debate Excerpts

Excerpts from the Congressional Record of the October 14, 1999 Senate debate.

The following is a tabulation, for clarity, of the figures cited by Mr. Feingold:

–	1980	1992	1996
Total soft money contributions to parties ($millions)	under 20	86	about 250
# of donors giving over $200,000	–	52	219
# of donors giving over $300,000	–	20	120
# of donors giving over $400,000	–	13	79
# of donors giving over $500,000	–	9	50
# of companies giving over $150,000 to each of the political parties (“double givers”)	–	7	43

 (emphasis added)

http://urielw.com/campfin.htm

There has been a tidal wave taking place, that threatens to swamp our fragile system of Democracy.  Indeed it probably already has …

Well it’s Pearl Harbor Day but Dad flew B29’s out of Italy late in “the big one”.  Dad is now 86, has advanced alzheimers and is becoming increasingly incontinent.  My extreme efforts to aide my mother and help her through this situation ended in her reporting me to an elder care agency for “elder abuse”, no less.

My final discovery in all this is that Ma is a sociopath.  Tomorrow there is a meeting to discuss how best to warehouse a WWII patriot in a nursing home.  Why?  Simply because he is of no further use to Ma.  He just can’t die in his own home like he wanted because Ma finds it gross that he craps in his pants. That plus Ma’s first psychiatric breakdown happened upon my birth, so I am, and have always been the focus of her Satanically aided anger.

In all of this and all of my efforts to help the medical and legal establishments of Afmericastan have proven to be evil in their nature and intent.  My mother taught me something with this entire experience and you should take heed.  Cure yourself and stay off the electronic medical surveillance grid.

I hadn’t been to an AIDS demonstration so far this year (my bad) but the prerecorded announcement from the ACT-UP phone tree Wednesday night haunted my sleep and got me out of bed and headed for midtown Thursday morning. The demo here in NYC was part of an international week of actions (including Arizona, Thailand, France, Switzerland and more) targeting pharmaceutical giant Roche. The demand was simple: Roche must negotiate with the South Korean government to lower prices on bulk orders of lifesaving AIDS drug Fuzeon for its national healthcare system.

What got me going was hearing the quote from Urs Fluekiger, marketing director for Roche Korea, who explained the company’s refusal to budge on their $22,000 price tag for one patient/year of this vital medication:

We do not do business for saving lives but for making money. Saving lives is none of our business.

I thought to myself, okay, that tears it. It’s getting harder and harder to find anyone saying a kind word about good old freemarket capitalism, what with the mounting wreckage that is the global economy these days and the hurt that will be put on everyday working people here in the US and around the world in order to rescue the bloodsuckers who have benefited from this system.

There’s every reason we should make a point of kicking ’em while they’re down.

So I did my little bit yesterday, leafleting at a characteristically lively and imaginative action by ACT-UP’s New York and Philly locals and other AIDS groups. Scores of people grabbed fliers as they rushed to work in the skyscraper housing LifeBrands, Inc., the ad agency that Roche employs to promote Fuzeon.

There’s plenty more detail to deepen your rage at Roche–how they bought out the company that was given the rights to this drug by the governmen (which sponsored the original research), how their executives have shut down all AIDS and HIV research, how their profits last year exceeded 30%. But that one quote tells the story, about Roche and about the whole system they have made themselves such a success in.

We do not do business for saving lives but for making money. Saving lives is none of our business.

(photos: Kaytee Riek)

Crossposted from Fire on the Mountain, where there are other photos of the demo.

http://www.wickedlocal.com/man…

More in the ever increasing evidence arsenal that the global business network I call “The Illuminati” does in fact have “de facto” control of the world. This example comes from the medical field but clearly illustrates how government and business are having an orgy, at our expense of course.

The more things change…..

In an increasingly complex world, many people find it difficult to cope with the stresses of day to day life. The strain of caring for a family, paying the mortgage, job insecurity, and terrorists lurking at the Dairy Queen, can result in crushing anxiety and fear. But now, from the makers of The War in Iraq™ and Katrina Neglect™ comes a breakthrough in the treatment of depression caused by incompetent and dishonest national leadership. Now there is an alternative to the endless years of suffering brought on by deficient representation.

Disclosure: I have represented and represent both brand name and generic drug manufacturers. I know of no conflict with my representations and my position on this issue.

The problem with lobbyists is not with their lobbying, it is with our political system that lets our representatives get away with this type of behavior:

Legislation aimed at speeding the availability of cheaper generic drugs has stalled in Congress in the face of major lobbying by the drug industry. The Senate bill would ban most settlements known as “reverse payments,” in which a brand-name company pays a generic manufacturer to delay the introduction of the generic drug. The Federal Trade Commission, which has called on Congress to take action, says such settlements could cost American consumers billions of dollars.

. . . “Lobbyists have a lot of influence in Washington,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Herb Kohl, who chairs the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights. “If we can just get this to a vote, it will be pretty hard for people to vote against it. A vote against this is a vote against consumers.” . . .

It is important to understand that the need for such a law is due to some atrocious antitrust decisions by the Supreme Court. The issue is a bit complex, but the basics of it is that the Supreme Court has adopted the unproven thesis of conservative economists that intrabrand competition (between retailers of the same brand product) has no effects on market competition and that it is only interbrand competition (competition between differently branded products) that promotes competition. Anyone who has gone shopping at a Target, Wal-Mart, CostCo or Walgreens, knows this is a sham. But such is the effect of 7 Republican appointees to the Court. The antitrust laws have been gutted by the Court in the past 20 years.