I remember this PSA (Public Service Announcement for those of you who never had kids in the TV Tech Department) from way back in the 1970’s. It was always one of my favorites:
I always wondered whatever happened to the fellow who played the magician in this classic commercial - until the other day when I was in one of my client’s medical offices. I happened to over hear the presentation of an older pharmaceutical rep.
Yes, he was now much older and silver haired. His voice had deepened with age and was a bit raspy. Yet, his pitch to the doctor was almost identical. Especially when it came to how he answered questions about harmful side effects.
The other thing that makes me smile about this commercial is the kid’s answer about marijuana:
“They’re not sure about it. They just started studying about it”
40 years down the road, and the opponents of Medical Marijuana are still using this very same line. I guess you got to stick with what works. It’s interesting how modern pharmaceuticals, cooked up in a chemical reaction vessel in a factory, take a little over 8 years to get FDA approval, yet a funny looking natural plant takes much longer to get approved and accepted. I guess you can’t be too careful with these things….
My final observation about this commercial is how I recalled feeling sorry for the magician at the end when all the kids just said ‘Nah!’, turned around, and walked away from him. I am happy to report that this no longer happens to the magician.
He now brings them a nice lunch, and free tickets to the ball game. No one walks away from Panera’s.
Goat cheese Paninis anyone?
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I finally decided to do something completely different.
Usually, when I write this blog, I do my very best to get people riled up about the corruption, abuses and wastes in our health care system.
Today, I decided to get people REALLY pissed off instead.
Okay, I lied. Today’s blog is not really all that much different. But hey, this blog is all about our failing health care system, which my regular readers will now recognize as being based upon lies and deceptions, so technically, I’m still on topic. After all, when in Rome….
At least no one can accuse me of fiddling while Rome burns … how about you?
Okay, as I was saying, today’s blog is designed to really piss people off. Oh, how I hope that I can succeed in my little task.
Let me start out by asking all of you: Do you know anyone who has lost a battle with cancer? Or who is battling this dreaded disease right now? Or, God forbid, are you fighting your own personal fight with cancer?
I’m sure that 99% of you have unfortunately answered ‘Yes’ to this question.
Okay, now take a few minutes and watch this video – I’m certain that it will be well worth your time. Then, please return to read the rest of this blog for the post-game.
Need to see more? Then check out this second video on the same subject:
OK, first of all, please save your opinions about Glenn Beck. They’re not material to this discussion.
Hate the message and not the messenger.
Besides, you’ve got to like some of his comments.
The real issue here is two-fold.
First, it shows just how much Big Pharm and their quest for corporate profits influences life and death decisions about our health. Cancer is a huge business. It is also a growth industry (no horrible pun intended). New, genetically engineered anti-cancer drugs are predicted to be the ‘next big thing’ for Big Pharm. A whole new slew of these drugs – which will cost as much as 10 grand a dose – are scheduled to hit the market shortly and are predicted to be the next huge profit center for Big Pharm. Hell, at those prices, they promise to make Lipitor an also-ran.
So I ask you – do you think that Big Pharm is going to let a cheap little upstart like DCA rain on their hundred billion dollar parade?
Don’t bet on it.
Which brings me to my second point – isn’t it so painfully obvious how brainwashed these researchers are? The fellow in this video is absolutely dense – even for a Canadian.
‘Yeah, it’s been used for 30 years to treat another condition without any serious side effects, but we can’t rush into things…’ or ‘It might interfere with other cancer drugs that a patient is taking’.
Tell you what, Doc McKenzie - Why don’t you put on your touk and head on out to Tim Horton’s for a donut run, eh? Meanwhile, this poor soul who has just been given thirty days to live is going to munch down on some of your DCA.
You say that it might interfere with the other (profitable) cancer drugs that apparently aren’t working? Well, don’t you worry - he’ll just flush those other drugs down the crapper like Karen Hill did with Henry’s stash in Goodfellas. Gotta make the gravy….
You say that it’s going to take years of clinical trials? You go ahead and do those trials – meanwhile, give the terminally ill some DCA. If they get better, you can attribute their recovery to that trip to Lourdes that they took. The dying don’t have time to be concerned about scientific method.
You caution that it might not work? Let the dying decide to roll those dice for themselves. What do they have to lose?
Jeez. If only if it were that easy. But guess what, folks – it ain’t.
Big Pharm is the puppetmaster in our health care system, and they know exactly what strings to pull to ensure that DCA (and other therapies like it) never see anything resembling wide-spread acceptance.
Their playbook is simple and well rehearsed. First, you’ll hear new reports on the unforeseen ‘dangers’ of DCA. New clinical trials (sponsored by guess who?) will find ‘potentially harmful long term effects’ of DCA usage. Next, the legislature will step in and make DCA a ‘controlled dangerous substance’ in order to ‘protect’ citizens from this ‘potentially dangerous drug’. Next, physicians who still recommend DCA as a treatment will be branded as quacks, and be forced to relocate their practice to some banana republic in order to keep on using DCA as a cancer therapy.
Don’t believe me? Well, it’s already started. Google “DCA medicine’ and you’ll find hits like “A Dangerous Pharmaceutical Espoused as 'Alternative Medicine” and “Online DCA peddler shut down“
The first article talks about many of the potentially harmful side effects of DCA, and it is obviously designed to scare people away from using it. Most of the side effects are no more serious than the well-published side effects of popular prescription medicines that are used to treat somewhat less serious conditions like acne and social anxiety. I guess that the possibility of birth defects is an acceptable risk if you want clear skin, but not if you don’t want to die from cancer.
The second link is a real interesting story of how the FDA shut down a California website for selling DCA as an anti-cancer drug. The problem is that a) DCA is not an illegal substance (it’s actually derived from common vinegar) and b) the web site never made any claims in regards to DCA and cancer. Nonetheless, the FDA shut it down saying that it ‘intended’ for the drug to be used by cancer patients, and it wasn’t approved for that use. Sounds a bit too much like ‘The Minority Report’ for my tastes – I guess that the sites operator was guilty of a thought crime. The other issue with the FDA’s logic is that MANY drugs are being used ‘off label’ for uses that they are not approved for – my recent post on Avastin illustrates one such drug. Yet, the FDA is not shutting down practices who use off label drugs – so long as those drugs are being manufactured by Big Pharm.
Fortunately for desperate cancer patients, DCA is still available from off-shore web sites – for now, at least. You can be sure that Big Pharm will eventually find a way to shut these sites down too. In the end, Big Pharm will most likely win and their profits will be protected. Hoorah.
Yeah, I know I’m beginning to sound like Mel Gibson, but I’m sorry – this kind of thing really pisses me off. Thirty years ago a college friend worked at one of the premier cancer research facilities evaluating new anti-cancer drugs. She ended up quitting in frustration as she watched countless promising therapies swept under the rug for no good reason. (at least, no good medical reason – I think we all know the real reason by now).
On the brighter side, DCA does have a bit more of a fighting chance since the research is being conducted in the Great White North. Big Pharm doesn’t have the same influence over the citizens and lawmakers of Canada as it does of those of the lower 48 – which is the reason why they don’t pay nearly as much for their prescription drugs. Then again, Canada will probably find a way to screw up DCA Research – after all, look what they did to the Winter Olympics.
The only hope for DCA is FDA approval, but that process takes years and costs around 100 million dollars. No surprise hat Big Pharm isn’t stepping up to pay that bill. Can you blame them?
Sadly, DCA will probably be relegated to history’s dust bin, like so many other promosing treatments before.
Same old story - nothing completely different here after all.
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It’s an old joke – the three most important things about real estate are location, location and location. However, it is also a truth that is said in jest – in real estate, location means everything.
The same can be said about a little-understood sector of health care – physician administered drugs. This health care niche serves to illustrate how the health insurance industry wastes millions every year – all while claiming that they are doing their part ‘keeping health care affordable”.
Many chronic conditions require heavy duty drug therapy to combat them – illnesses like cancer, aids, and severe infections. These powerful drugs are so potent that they can only be administered under the close supervision of a physician. This is the world of physician administered drugs.
There are two locations where patients can receive this therapy – in a doctor’s office or in a hospital. Because the US hospital is the most expensive place on this blue marble to receive health care, it would be logical to assume that the physician’s office is the more cost effective location – and it is – sort of.
The devil is in the details.
The problem is that our health insurance system actually encourages patients – and sometimes even forces them – to use the more expensive alternative.
Even though receiving these drugs at a hospital costs nearly twice as much as receiving them at a Doctor’s office, most patients decide to use the more expensive alternative. Here’s why:
Let’s say that the drug a patient needs to receive costs $1,200 per treatment when delivered at a physician’s office and $2,000 per treatment wheh they receive it at a hospital. This is a no-brainer – the patient would go to the physician’s office for treatment, wouldn’t they?
As much as it pains me to say it – I wouldn’t. And, if you are covered by any type of health insurance, you probably wouldn’t either.
Most health care plans have a fixed copay of around $50 for an outpatient hospital visit. The same plans often demand a 20% copay for receiving physician administered drugs at a doctor’s office. So, the out of pocket cost is $50 when a patient gets treated at the hospital or $240 when they get treated at a doctor’s office. When you then factor in the fact that many of these drug therapies require the patient to receive treatments three times a week, it quickly becomes cost prohibitive for a patient not to go to the more expensive hospital for their treatments.
Regular readers of this blog are familiar with the concept of Star Trek economics, and they realize that in the not-so-long run the hospital treatments will end up costing everyone more money, but who can blame anyone who opts for the lower out of pocket expense.
In the short term, at least, the hospital option seems to be the most logical.
The point of this discussion is simple – a small change in the benefit policies of your health insurance carrier could save us all hundreds of millions annually, but this simple change isn’t happening.
Still, our health insurance industry still tries to convince us that they are doing their part to ‘make health care affordable”.
Affordable. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
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Avast thar me maties! Thar be treasure to be plundered!
Actually, I meant AVASTIN, And it’s patients who are to be plundered.
Mea culpa. Let me explain.
Avastin is a powerful anti-cancer drug that’s manufactured by pharm-giant Genentech. It is used to combat several forms of cancer by preventing the growth of new blood vessels, a common phenomena in cancerous tumors.
Some forward thinking ophthalmologists (eye doctors for you heathens) had a very bright idea about using this wonder drug. You see, ophthalmologists treat a terrible disease called macular degeneration (or AMD), which robs the sight of thousands and thousands of (usually older) patients every year. In the US alone, about 200,000 new case of AMD are diagnosed each year, and, left untreated, lead to a gradual loss of vision. The thing about Macular Degeneration is that it is caused by the rapid growth of new blood vessels inside the eye. If Avastin works on cancer tumors by restricting new blood vessel growth, couldn’t it also be used to combat AMD?
Turns out, it could. A minute amount of Avastin, injected directly into the eye, actually proved to stop (and in some cases reverse) AMD, thereby saving the sight of hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.
Except that Avastin has several problems.
First and foremost, Avastin for ophthalmologic use is only needed in very tiny doses – perhaps only one-hundredth of the amount used to treat cancer patients.
Secondly, Avastin is not FDA approved for ophthalmologic use. It only comes in the large, economy size that is sold to oncologists (cancer doctors, you heathens). In fact, for ophthalmologists, it was almost like they were buying the drug at Costco – they got a great price, but it was far too much for them to use.
So, these bright eye docs bought the Costco-sized packages of Avastin and sent them to compounding pharmacies – special pharmacies that take the jumbo, Super Big Gulp sized packages of Avastin and split them down into the tiny dosages used by the eye doctors treating AMD.
The third problem of Avastin – the real turd in the punchbowl – is that it has competition – a new drug called Lucentis. Lucentis is an extremely similar drug to Avastin. They are almost identical, chemically speaking, and for good reason – both drugs were developed and are marketed by pharma-giant Genentech. Unlike Avastin, however, Lucentis is FDA approved for ophthalmologic use. It comes in the handy small doses that ophthalmologists need to treat AMD. And, most importantly, this almost-identical drug costs around 10 times the per dose price of Avastin.
Poor Genentech. What’s a money-grabbing pharmaceutical giant to do???
Plenty. With this much money involved, Genentech released the hounds faster than Monty Burns. Citing ‘safety concerns’, they stopped selling and shipping Avastin to compounding pharmacies. Not that there has been one documented case of ill effects related to a compounding pharmacy, but that’s beside the point.
Not stopping there, Genentech convinced Medicare to cut reimbursement for Avastin injections by ophthalmologists. Since most AMD patients are on Medicare (and a fixed income), this was a brilliant move by Genentech. Ophthalmologists who were being reimbursed for Avastin at $50 an injection are now only paid a measly $7.00 per treatment – not a lot of money for sticking a needle in someone’s eyeball if you ask me.
For the Medicare patient, this strategy has helped level the playing field between the two competing drugs. Where Medicare patients used to pay a $15 copay for their Avastin treatment, they now pay a whopping $150 copay per dose, as opposed to an average copay of $400 for Lucentis.
For the fixed income Medicare patient with AMD, the new $150 copay may just prove too much of a burden to handle.
Faced with this economic dilemma, the cash-strapped senior may not know whether to shit or go blind.
Luckily for them, Genentech has helped make this decision for them – all in the name of corporate greed.
Thanks. Genentech executives. I sincerely hope that their seeing eye dogs piss on the leg of your Armani suits.
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Most of us have heard the phrase “Canary in a Coal Mine”. Maybe you’ve even heard the song by the Police. But what does it mean?
Back in the days before sophisticated electronic sensors, coal miners would often keep a caged canary with them. Coal mines were notorious for their hidden pockets of odorless lethal gas. Usually, by the time the miners realized that the gas was present, it would be too late to escape the mine before being overcome by the poison. As a defense, the miners would carry a caged canary into the mines with them. The sensitive respiratory system of the frail bird would cause it to keel over from the smallest trace of gas. The dead canary would signal the miners to make their escape long before they suffered any adverse affects from the gas.
One frustrating thing about writing this blog has been how many people comment that ‘they don’t see any problems’ with the ever-rising costs of health care. It occurred to me that these are people who generally receive their insurance through their employers and are therefore somewhat insulated from the health care crisis. Us poor schmucks who foot the bill for our own health insurance are like the proverbial canaries. Unfortunately, too many people have been ignoring the dead yellow birdies – until now.
Until recently, the state workers in New Jersey have been benefiting from a great health care plan through the New Jersey State Benefits program. This insurance, with an annual cost to the state of over $20,000 per individual only cost the state employee a measly 1.5% of their salary – a real bargain. Unfortunately, the governor has recently decreed that this type of expenditure by the State id no longer sustainable. He has announced – much to the chagrin of state employees – that he wants them to contribute 30% of the cost of the insurance. The state employee contribution for a mid level worker making 50 grand a year will skyrocket from around $60 a month to well over $500 a month.
As would be expected, the state workers are not happy with this new arrangement.
Welcome to my hell. What I wouldn’t give to pay $500 a month for my health insurance.
The sad fact is that it’s just a matter of economics – the State of New Jersey just can’t afford to keep on paying for these benefits under the current split. The state is making some compromises – including offering some lower cost (and lower coverage) plans to state workers.
By the way, this announcement is causing the executives at Horizon Blue Cross – who underwrote the former plan – to have a series of mini strokes over the new lower cost plans the state will be offering. So there is a bright side to this whole fiasco. Maybe the loss in revenues will force Horizon into grounding that freakin’ blimp that wastes 2 million of our health care dollars every year. I just hope and pray that Horizon CEO Marino will be able to maintain his pitiful 8 million dollar take home next year.
For those of you who work in the private sector, please don’t miss the message of this second round of dead canaries. Sooner or later (most likely sooner) you to will be affected by the ridiculous cost of health care. Corporate employees will be forced to deal with layoffs, increased employee contributions, lowered salaries, or a combination of these factors as the private sector is forced to deal with trying to keep a lid on health care costs.
Whether you have personally felt the effects of the meteoric rise of health care costs, be assured that it’s just a matter of time. We all need to start working together – right now – to get a handle on this monster.
Don’t do it for yourself – do it for Ms. Morgenstern, your high school English Literature teacher who will now be paying out over $700 a month for her health care. The poor spinster may even be forced to give up some of her cats.
On the bright side, Ms. Morgenstern finally realized what Ernie Hemmingway meant when he wrote “Ask not for whom the bell tolls – it tolls for thee”
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