I have been relatively quiet about the skyrocketing cost of drugs, but it has now become impossible to remain out of the fray.
A Pharmaceutical company recently acquired a drug called Daraprim, the drug treats potentially fatal parasitic infections. After its acquisition the company raised the price of Daraprim by almost 5,0000%. When confronted with great anger about the price increase, the company at first declined to comment until their CEO answered critics with a series of dismissive tweets and interviews. The price of Daraprim remains out of reach for many individuals.
As we all know there are many drugs that have had their prices balloon out of reality. Irresponsible price increases have appeared across the board for drugs that treat everything from cancer, to gout, to Crohn’s disease to name just a few.
According to the Commonwealth Fund in 2014, around 35 million Americans did not fill their prescriptions because they couldn’t afford them. That’s one in five ill people in the United States that failed to take their medication because they could not afford it.
“When you’re charging tens of thousands or several thousand dollars for one infusion of a particular medication, now we’re getting to the point where you wonder, ‘How greedy can drug companies get?'” said Dr. Frank Esper, an infectious diseases expert at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio.
The Kaiser Family Fou