California's Fires

On Friday, October 27, 2017 at 2:32:32 AM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 25 Oct 2017 13:40:04 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 12:26:01 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 11:25:36 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 9:53:24 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 9:29:11 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 12:21:14 AM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 23:06:22 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/24/2017 9:24 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 11:42:41 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/24/2017 10:44 AM, AMuzi wrote:


an old observation but still true:
Under capitalism, it's man against man.
Under enlightened communism, it's the other way around.

I'd say that under modern American capitalism, it's billion dollar
corporation against man.

Probably true. But what is the alternate? Or perhaps, what is a
politically viable alternate?

It is tough to envision an alternative, especially a near-term one. The
fact is, large corporations have money to affect the election process in
ways that no individuals can hope counter.

Current Ohio example: Issue Two in this next election will involve
prices for pharmaceuticals. The measure is badly written in some ways,
but the essence is that no state agency should pay more for
pharmaceuticals than the prices negotiated by the Veteran's
Administration. (The VA is allowed to negotiate and does, just as do the
medical sytems in Canada, Britain, France, etc. and as a result they pay
FAR less.)

What I find interesting that in some countries.... (strangely Thailand
comes to mind :-) the price of certain, perhaps most, pharmaceuticals
is lower, sometimes much lower then in other countries. Sometimes very
near by.

I remember, after I retired and living in Thailand, I visited a
doctor in Singapore and mentioned that I could buy medicines in
Thailand cheaper then in Singapore. The doctor replied that I didn't
need to go all the way to Thailand, "just cross the causeway to
Malaysia".

In the U.S. I read about people crossing the border to Canada or
Mexico to buy medicine.

Granted that the cost of doing business is higher in the U.S., but
still.

As I said, there are problems with this issue. But it's amazing to watch
the tidal waves of advertising the pharmaceutical companies are funding
to have it defeated. Ads on TV are at least 10 to 1 against it. They are
spending fortunes in their efforts. Why? Because they have the money to
do so, and they want to keep getting that money.


Of course, but no different then any other company. Everybody knows
that Chevrolet is better then a Ford. Says so, right there on the T.V.
:-)

And of course, the ads are very misleading - such as "defeat it because
it doesn't cover 3/4 of Ohioans!" Right, because it applies only to
state agencies, and most don't get their medications that way..

Other examples abound. But when an industry like this has unlimited
money to spend, they can pretty much buy what they want.

Note to non-USians: The USA is one of only two developed nations where
drug companies can, and do, market prescription medications directly to
consumers; as in "Tell your doctor you want THIS prescription drug!" As
a result, TV ads are almost totally dominated by prescription medicine
ads and, of course, motor vehicle ads.

The cost of medicine outside of the US isn't any sort of comparison to those sold in the USA where most of the funding for medicine development occurs.

Not to mention that many medications are counterfeited outside of the USA and a great many of them are ineffective. I can tell the difference between my anti-convulsive mediation made by different manufacturers here.

Much of the research is done by foreign drug makers. My wife's drug was developed by Hoffman-LaRoche in Switzerland in the 1950s. It is typically prescribed to patients with Huntington's disease but is also used for other chorea disorders. Drugs purchased from legitimate Canadian pharmacies are typically the same brands available in the US or safe and effective generics from foreign manufacturers. This is not like buying fake Viagra from China via the internet.

There is no reason CMS should pay extortive prices for orphan or branded drugs available in Canada or Europe for a small fraction of the price -- except to pad the pockets of domestic sellers. The tax code already rewards manufacturers and others with depreciating intellectual property. No need to pay twice.

The USA does 43.7% of pharmaceutical research and development. ONE country does this out of 195 countries. And MANY of the drugs that are sold by competing foreign firms were developed in the US and were immediately copied the second that the patents ran out.

The company with the largest R&D budget is Swiss. The fact that a large number of drugs are patented by US companies also does not mean they were in fact developed in the US, particularly with the world-wide operations of most US drug manufacturers. Also, see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866602/

Also, nobody is contending that US companies don't produce a lot of new "NME" (new molecular entities), but that does not mean US drug manufacturers should be allowed to price gouge or that CMS should not be allowed to negotiate prices. The US also makes a lot of cars, but that doesn't mean the GSA shouldn't negotiate the price of fleet vehicles -- or computers or durable medical equipment. Why should drugs be different? WalMart does it. Other health plans do it. Why not Medicare? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/wa...-medicare.html

The largest drug company in the world is Roche and they have the largest R&D budget and almost ALL of their companies are American.

Nope. Johnson & Johnson with 2016 revenues of 71.89 billion dollars is
the largest Pharmaceutical company in the world while Roche, which is
a Swiss company, had 2016 revenues of only 50.11 billion.


So why are you using an example of a holding company that has gone to a tax haven?

J&J isn't a drug company per se'. They manufacture medical devices and consumer goods which is where the vast majority of their money comes from.

Roche is an American company that moved to the tax haven of Switzerland. Calling them a Swiss company when they are nothing more than a holding company for American pharmaceutical companies is false advertising.

On Friday, October 27, 2017 at 2:58:36 AM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 26 Oct 2017 18:33:20 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/26/2017 5:04 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
jbeattie writes:

On Thursday, October 26, 2017 at 10:20:21 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Thursday, October 26, 2017 at 10:10:01 AM UTC-7, Radey Shouman wrote:
writes:

[...]

And MANY of the drugs that are
sold by competing foreign firms were developed in the US and were
immediately copied the second that the patents ran out.

You say that like it's a bad thing. I thought it was the very reason we
have patents.

Huh? I am responding to comments about the cost of drugs. We had Jay
not understanding that the cost of developing drugs is gigantic.

I understand better than you know. My father was a pharmacist who
started out as a research chemist at Eli Lilly. My uncle was
president/CEO of Pfizer. I read the 10Ks and annual reports just to
get jaw-dropped by his compensation package. R&D was a big part of the
presentation because having a new drug in the pipeline jacks up share
value, particularly when its Viagra.

The fact that a product is the result of expensive R&D does not mean
the federal government should be prohibited from negotiating over the
purchase price of that product -- whether it's a drug or a
computer. Imagine if the USAF was prohibited from negotiating with
Boeing or Lockheed over the price of bomber.

Are you sure that would be noticeably worse? Follow the F35?

I think Tom means that this stuff is all just fine:
https://www.thenation.com/article/on...a-toilet-seat/

I read that but I don't see any details. Only a few people waving
their arms in the air and shouting.

I've recounted the story of how I inadvertently ordered some "special"
reamers and my neighbor, a procurement guy at Edwards AFB, told me
about two cases of stainless pipe being ordered that didn't fit after
being trucked across the U.S. Surprising as it may be there is a
difference in the O.D. pipe and tubing.

Not that the D.D. procurement is without blemish, quite the contrary,
but in some cases there are reasons.

The story of the $640, by the way, is

"The P-3C Orion antisubmarine aircraft went into service in 1962.
Twenty-five years later, in 1987, it was determined that the toilet
shroud, the cover that fits over the toilet, needed replacement. Since
the airplane was out of production this would require new tooling to
produce. These on-board toilets required a uniquely shaped, molded
fiberglass shroud that had to satisfy specifications for vibration
resistance, weight, and durability. The molds had to be specially
made, as it had been decades since their original production. The
price reflected the design work and the cost of the equipment to
manufacture them. Lockheed Corporation charged $34,560 for 54 toilet
covers, or $640 each.

You don't find that a reasonable cost?

Frank Krygowski writes:

On 10/26/2017 8:49 PM, John B. wrote:
I would go even further. How many people in the U.S. are severely
allergic to peanuts, bee stings, etc.?

Not that it is a scientific study but I can't remember ever actually
seeing anyone fall down and die after being stung by a bee, or eating
a peanut, in fact I can't remember more then a few people that were
stung by a bee.

This is not to say that it never happens but I did look up some
numbers and I read that bee stings result of ~50 deaths annually.

I suppose you could get a rough idea by looking at the annual sales
count for epi-pens. I doubt anyone buys them just for fun.

I doubt that. Almost all epipens are eventually thrown away, since
their shelf life is a year or so. You wouldn't look up sales figures
for fire extinguishers to count fires, nor air bags to count auto
crashes.

--

On 10/27/2017 10:40 AM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

On 10/26/2017 8:49 PM, John B. wrote:
I would go even further. How many people in the U.S. are severely
allergic to peanuts, bee stings, etc.?

Not that it is a scientific study but I can't remember ever actually
seeing anyone fall down and die after being stung by a bee, or eating
a peanut, in fact I can't remember more then a few people that were
stung by a bee.

This is not to say that it never happens but I did look up some
numbers and I read that bee stings result of ~50 deaths annually.

I suppose you could get a rough idea by looking at the annual sales
count for epi-pens. I doubt anyone buys them just for fun.

I doubt that. Almost all epipens are eventually thrown away, since
their shelf life is a year or so. You wouldn't look up sales figures
for fire extinguishers to count fires, nor air bags to count auto
crashes.


Unless to purposefully obfuscate, such as border seizures
numbers (drugs and people) when the overwhelming bulk of
both fly commercial and have for many years.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 10/27/2017 5:58 AM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 26 Oct 2017 18:33:20 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/26/2017 5:04 PM, Radey Shouman wrote:
jbeattie writes:

On Thursday, October 26, 2017 at 10:20:21 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Thursday, October 26, 2017 at 10:10:01 AM UTC-7, Radey Shouman wrote:
writes:

[...]

And MANY of the drugs that are
sold by competing foreign firms were developed in the US and were
immediately copied the second that the patents ran out.

You say that like it's a bad thing. I thought it was the very reason we
have patents.

Huh? I am responding to comments about the cost of drugs. We had Jay
not understanding that the cost of developing drugs is gigantic.

I understand better than you know. My father was a pharmacist who
started out as a research chemist at Eli Lilly. My uncle was
president/CEO of Pfizer. I read the 10Ks and annual reports just to
get jaw-dropped by his compensation package. R&D was a big part of the
presentation because having a new drug in the pipeline jacks up share
value, particularly when its Viagra.

The fact that a product is the result of expensive R&D does not mean
the federal government should be prohibited from negotiating over the
purchase price of that product -- whether it's a drug or a
computer. Imagine if the USAF was prohibited from negotiating with
Boeing or Lockheed over the price of bomber.

Are you sure that would be noticeably worse? Follow the F35?

I think Tom means that this stuff is all just fine:
https://www.thenation.com/article/on...a-toilet-seat/

I read that but I don't see any details. Only a few people waving
their arms in the air and shouting.

I've recounted the story of how I inadvertently ordered some "special"
reamers and my neighbor, a procurement guy at Edwards AFB, told me
about two cases of stainless pipe being ordered that didn't fit after
being trucked across the U.S. Surprising as it may be there is a
difference in the O.D. pipe and tubing.

Not that the D.D. procurement is without blemish, quite the contrary,
but in some cases there are reasons.

The story of the $640, by the way, is

"The P-3C Orion antisubmarine aircraft went into service in 1962.
Twenty-five years later, in 1987, it was determined that the toilet
shroud, the cover that fits over the toilet, needed replacement. Since
the airplane was out of production this would require new tooling to
produce. These on-board toilets required a uniquely shaped, molded
fiberglass shroud that had to satisfy specifications for vibration
resistance, weight, and durability. The molds had to be specially
made, as it had been decades since their original production. The
price reflected the design work and the cost of the equipment to
manufacture them. Lockheed Corporation charged $34,560 for 54 toilet
covers, or $640 each.

OK, that sounds more reasonable. Thanks.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 10/27/2017 11:59 AM, AMuzi wrote:
On 10/27/2017 10:40 AM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

On 10/26/2017 8:49 PM, John B. wrote:
Â* I would go even further. How many people in the U.S. are severely
allergic to peanuts, bee stings, etc.?

Not that it is a scientific study but I can't remember ever actually
seeing anyone fall down and die after being stung by a bee, or eating
a peanut, in fact I can't remember more then a few people that were
stung by a bee.

This is not to say that it never happens but I did look up some
numbers and I read that bee stings result of ~50 deaths annually.

I suppose you could get a rough idea by looking at the annual sales
count for epi-pens. I doubt anyone buys them just for fun.

I doubt that.Â* Almost all epipens are eventually thrown away, since
their shelf life is a year or so.Â* You wouldn't look up sales figures
for fire extinguishers to count fires, nor air bags to count auto
crashes.


Unless to purposefully obfuscate, such as border seizures numbers (drugs
and people) when the overwhelming bulk of both fly commercial and have
for many years.

No problem. Just build a wall 35,000 feet high.


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Friday, October 27, 2017 at 8:28:53 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Friday, October 27, 2017 at 2:32:32 AM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 25 Oct 2017 13:40:04 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 12:26:01 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 11:25:36 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 9:53:24 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 9:29:11 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 12:21:14 AM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 23:06:22 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/24/2017 9:24 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 11:42:41 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/24/2017 10:44 AM, AMuzi wrote:


an old observation but still true:
Under capitalism, it's man against man.
Under enlightened communism, it's the other way around.

I'd say that under modern American capitalism, it's billion dollar
corporation against man.

Probably true. But what is the alternate? Or perhaps, what is a
politically viable alternate?

It is tough to envision an alternative, especially a near-term one. The
fact is, large corporations have money to affect the election process in
ways that no individuals can hope counter.

Current Ohio example: Issue Two in this next election will involve
prices for pharmaceuticals. The measure is badly written in some ways,
but the essence is that no state agency should pay more for
pharmaceuticals than the prices negotiated by the Veteran's
Administration. (The VA is allowed to negotiate and does, just as do the
medical sytems in Canada, Britain, France, etc. and as a result they pay
FAR less.)

What I find interesting that in some countries.... (strangely Thailand
comes to mind :-) the price of certain, perhaps most, pharmaceuticals
is lower, sometimes much lower then in other countries. Sometimes very
near by.

I remember, after I retired and living in Thailand, I visited a
doctor in Singapore and mentioned that I could buy medicines in
Thailand cheaper then in Singapore. The doctor replied that I didn't
need to go all the way to Thailand, "just cross the causeway to
Malaysia".

In the U.S. I read about people crossing the border to Canada or
Mexico to buy medicine.

Granted that the cost of doing business is higher in the U.S.., but
still.

As I said, there are problems with this issue. But it's amazing to watch
the tidal waves of advertising the pharmaceutical companies are funding
to have it defeated. Ads on TV are at least 10 to 1 against it. They are
spending fortunes in their efforts. Why? Because they have the money to
do so, and they want to keep getting that money.


Of course, but no different then any other company. Everybody knows
that Chevrolet is better then a Ford. Says so, right there on the T.V.
:-)

And of course, the ads are very misleading - such as "defeat it because
it doesn't cover 3/4 of Ohioans!" Right, because it applies only to
state agencies, and most don't get their medications that way.

Other examples abound. But when an industry like this has unlimited
money to spend, they can pretty much buy what they want.

Note to non-USians: The USA is one of only two developed nations where
drug companies can, and do, market prescription medications directly to
consumers; as in "Tell your doctor you want THIS prescription drug!" As
a result, TV ads are almost totally dominated by prescription medicine
ads and, of course, motor vehicle ads.

The cost of medicine outside of the US isn't any sort of comparison to those sold in the USA where most of the funding for medicine development occurs.

Not to mention that many medications are counterfeited outside of the USA and a great many of them are ineffective. I can tell the difference between my anti-convulsive mediation made by different manufacturers here.

Much of the research is done by foreign drug makers. My wife's drug was developed by Hoffman-LaRoche in Switzerland in the 1950s. It is typically prescribed to patients with Huntington's disease but is also used for other chorea disorders. Drugs purchased from legitimate Canadian pharmacies are typically the same brands available in the US or safe and effective generics from foreign manufacturers. This is not like buying fake Viagra from China via the internet.

There is no reason CMS should pay extortive prices for orphan or branded drugs available in Canada or Europe for a small fraction of the price -- except to pad the pockets of domestic sellers. The tax code already rewards manufacturers and others with depreciating intellectual property. No need to pay twice.

The USA does 43.7% of pharmaceutical research and development. ONE country does this out of 195 countries. And MANY of the drugs that are sold by competing foreign firms were developed in the US and were immediately copied the second that the patents ran out.

The company with the largest R&D budget is Swiss. The fact that a large number of drugs are patented by US companies also does not mean they were in fact developed in the US, particularly with the world-wide operations of most US drug manufacturers. Also, see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866602/

Also, nobody is contending that US companies don't produce a lot of new "NME" (new molecular entities), but that does not mean US drug manufacturers should be allowed to price gouge or that CMS should not be allowed to negotiate prices. The US also makes a lot of cars, but that doesn't mean the GSA shouldn't negotiate the price of fleet vehicles -- or computers or durable medical equipment. Why should drugs be different? WalMart does it. Other health plans do it. Why not Medicare? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/wa...-medicare.html

The largest drug company in the world is Roche and they have the largest R&D budget and almost ALL of their companies are American.

Nope. Johnson & Johnson with 2016 revenues of 71.89 billion dollars is
the largest Pharmaceutical company in the world while Roche, which is
a Swiss company, had 2016 revenues of only 50.11 billion.


So why are you using an example of a holding company that has gone to a tax haven?

J&J isn't a drug company per se'. They manufacture medical devices and consumer goods which is where the vast majority of their money comes from.

Roche is an American company that moved to the tax haven of Switzerland. Calling them a Swiss company when they are nothing more than a holding company for American pharmaceutical companies is false advertising.

NO IT ISN'T. ROCHE IS A SWISS COMPANY AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN. I REPEAT: ROCHE .. . . SWISS. EOM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoffmann-La_Roche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Hoffmann-La_Roche

-- Jay Beattie.

On Friday, October 27, 2017 at 8:40:25 AM UTC-7, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

On 10/26/2017 8:49 PM, John B. wrote:
I would go even further. How many people in the U.S. are severely
allergic to peanuts, bee stings, etc.?

Not that it is a scientific study but I can't remember ever actually
seeing anyone fall down and die after being stung by a bee, or eating
a peanut, in fact I can't remember more then a few people that were
stung by a bee.

This is not to say that it never happens but I did look up some
numbers and I read that bee stings result of ~50 deaths annually.

I suppose you could get a rough idea by looking at the annual sales
count for epi-pens. I doubt anyone buys them just for fun.

I doubt that. Almost all epipens are eventually thrown away, since
their shelf life is a year or so. You wouldn't look up sales figures
for fire extinguishers to count fires, nor air bags to count auto
crashes.

Studies on the shelf life of epinephrine in both plastic syringes and glass vials show 10% degradation in 14 days and solutions containing stabilizers are good for about 56 days.

You have to remember that this is adrenaline and can kill you so over-dosage to assuage aging solutions is probably not a good idea.

On Friday, October 27, 2017 at 8:59:45 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 10/27/2017 10:40 AM, Radey Shouman wrote:
Frank Krygowski writes:

On 10/26/2017 8:49 PM, John B. wrote:
I would go even further. How many people in the U.S. are severely
allergic to peanuts, bee stings, etc.?

Not that it is a scientific study but I can't remember ever actually
seeing anyone fall down and die after being stung by a bee, or eating
a peanut, in fact I can't remember more then a few people that were
stung by a bee.

This is not to say that it never happens but I did look up some
numbers and I read that bee stings result of ~50 deaths annually.

I suppose you could get a rough idea by looking at the annual sales
count for epi-pens. I doubt anyone buys them just for fun.

I doubt that. Almost all epipens are eventually thrown away, since
their shelf life is a year or so. You wouldn't look up sales figures
for fire extinguishers to count fires, nor air bags to count auto
crashes.


Unless to purposefully obfuscate, such as border seizures
numbers (drugs and people) when the overwhelming bulk of
both fly commercial and have for many years.

I don't believe that's so Andrew. At least until 2009 virtually ALL drugs came into the US through land and water. Seizures of drugs on airlines were more on the order of legal drugs making illegal entry.

It wouldn't have taken much to change that poison gas sniffer I programmed to sniff out drugs. And it could be made incredibly sensitive. It would make dogs seem clumsy.

On Friday, October 27, 2017 at 1:10:06 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, October 27, 2017 at 8:28:53 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Friday, October 27, 2017 at 2:32:32 AM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Wed, 25 Oct 2017 13:40:04 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 12:26:01 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 11:25:36 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 9:53:24 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 9:29:11 AM UTC-7, wrote:
On Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 12:21:14 AM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 23:06:22 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/24/2017 9:24 PM, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 24 Oct 2017 11:42:41 -0400, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 10/24/2017 10:44 AM, AMuzi wrote:


an old observation but still true:
Under capitalism, it's man against man.
Under enlightened communism, it's the other way around.

I'd say that under modern American capitalism, it's billion dollar
corporation against man.

Probably true. But what is the alternate? Or perhaps, what is a
politically viable alternate?

It is tough to envision an alternative, especially a near-term one. The
fact is, large corporations have money to affect the election process in
ways that no individuals can hope counter.

Current Ohio example: Issue Two in this next election will involve
prices for pharmaceuticals. The measure is badly written in some ways,
but the essence is that no state agency should pay more for
pharmaceuticals than the prices negotiated by the Veteran's
Administration. (The VA is allowed to negotiate and does, just as do the
medical sytems in Canada, Britain, France, etc. and as a result they pay
FAR less.)

What I find interesting that in some countries.... (strangely Thailand
comes to mind :-) the price of certain, perhaps most, pharmaceuticals
is lower, sometimes much lower then in other countries. Sometimes very
near by.

I remember, after I retired and living in Thailand, I visited a
doctor in Singapore and mentioned that I could buy medicines in
Thailand cheaper then in Singapore. The doctor replied that I didn't
need to go all the way to Thailand, "just cross the causeway to
Malaysia".

In the U.S. I read about people crossing the border to Canada or
Mexico to buy medicine.

Granted that the cost of doing business is higher in the U..S., but
still.

As I said, there are problems with this issue. But it's amazing to watch
the tidal waves of advertising the pharmaceutical companies are funding
to have it defeated. Ads on TV are at least 10 to 1 against it. They are
spending fortunes in their efforts. Why? Because they have the money to
do so, and they want to keep getting that money.


Of course, but no different then any other company. Everybody knows
that Chevrolet is better then a Ford. Says so, right there on the T.V.
:-)

And of course, the ads are very misleading - such as "defeat it because
it doesn't cover 3/4 of Ohioans!" Right, because it applies only to
state agencies, and most don't get their medications that way.

Other examples abound. But when an industry like this has unlimited
money to spend, they can pretty much buy what they want.

Note to non-USians: The USA is one of only two developed nations where
drug companies can, and do, market prescription medications directly to
consumers; as in "Tell your doctor you want THIS prescription drug!" As
a result, TV ads are almost totally dominated by prescription medicine
ads and, of course, motor vehicle ads.

The cost of medicine outside of the US isn't any sort of comparison to those sold in the USA where most of the funding for medicine development occurs.

Not to mention that many medications are counterfeited outside of the USA and a great many of them are ineffective. I can tell the difference between my anti-convulsive mediation made by different manufacturers here.

Much of the research is done by foreign drug makers. My wife's drug was developed by Hoffman-LaRoche in Switzerland in the 1950s. It is typically prescribed to patients with Huntington's disease but is also used for other chorea disorders. Drugs purchased from legitimate Canadian pharmacies are typically the same brands available in the US or safe and effective generics from foreign manufacturers. This is not like buying fake Viagra from China via the internet.

There is no reason CMS should pay extortive prices for orphan or branded drugs available in Canada or Europe for a small fraction of the price -- except to pad the pockets of domestic sellers. The tax code already rewards manufacturers and others with depreciating intellectual property. No need to pay twice.

The USA does 43.7% of pharmaceutical research and development. ONE country does this out of 195 countries. And MANY of the drugs that are sold by competing foreign firms were developed in the US and were immediately copied the second that the patents ran out.

The company with the largest R&D budget is Swiss. The fact that a large number of drugs are patented by US companies also does not mean they were in fact developed in the US, particularly with the world-wide operations of most US drug manufacturers. Also, see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866602/

Also, nobody is contending that US companies don't produce a lot of new "NME" (new molecular entities), but that does not mean US drug manufacturers should be allowed to price gouge or that CMS should not be allowed to negotiate prices. The US also makes a lot of cars, but that doesn't mean the GSA shouldn't negotiate the price of fleet vehicles -- or computers or durable medical equipment. Why should drugs be different? WalMart does it. Other health plans do it. Why not Medicare? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/wa...-medicare.html

The largest drug company in the world is Roche and they have the largest R&D budget and almost ALL of their companies are American.

Nope. Johnson & Johnson with 2016 revenues of 71.89 billion dollars is
the largest Pharmaceutical company in the world while Roche, which is
a Swiss company, had 2016 revenues of only 50.11 billion.


So why are you using an example of a holding company that has gone to a tax haven?

J&J isn't a drug company per se'. They manufacture medical devices and consumer goods which is where the vast majority of their money comes from.

Roche is an American company that moved to the tax haven of Switzerland.. Calling them a Swiss company when they are nothing more than a holding company for American pharmaceutical companies is false advertising.

NO IT ISN'T. ROCHE IS A SWISS COMPANY AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN. I REPEAT: ROCHE . . . SWISS. EOM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoffmann-La_Roche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Hoffmann-La_Roche

-- Jay Beattie.

Continue telling me all about them when I worked for Genentech.