OPIOID MURDERS BY BIG PHARMA
“While drug distributors have paid a total of $400 million in fines over the past 10 years, their combined revenue during this same period was over $5 trillion.”
“Opioids have ravaged families and devastated communities across the country. Encouraging their open use undermines the rule of law and will do nothing to quell their continued abuse, let alone the problems underlying mass addiction.”
“Our
entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become
a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This
is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen
McQuillan THEAMERICAN THINKER.com
More US drug price hikes in 2019
Drug manufacturers began the new year with a new round of price hikes for already highly expensive US-branded prescription drugs.
According to Reuters, drug manufacturers raised the prices of more than 250 prescription drugs, including the world’s top-selling medicine, Humira.
Such annual price hikes are common among drug makers. Around this time last year, pharmaceutical companies raised the prices of over 400 medications, according to the data analyst website Rx Savings Solutions.
Although this year’s price hikes are smaller than in previous years, possibly in response to Trump’s tepid threats against the drug industry, such price increases will continue throughout the year, placing further financial burdens on workers struggling to afford life-saving medications.
Among the worst offenders was Allergan Plc, the Irish-based drug maker who raised the prices on more than 50 drugs, with more than half of the drugs going up in price by 9.5 percent.
Drug maker AbbVie Inc. increased the price of their most popular medication Humira, used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, by more than 6.2 percent. Last year, the company recorded $20 billion in sales of this drug alone. Between 2012 and 2018, AbbVie raised the price of Humira from $19,000 to more than $38,000 per year, a 100 percent increase.
Johnson & Johnson raised prices on two dozen prescription medications by 6-7 percent, including the psoriasis treatment Stelara, the prostate cancer drug Zytiga and the blood thinner Xarelto, the company’s best-selling products.
Although profits for drug makers have soared the past three years, with the profit margins of the industry generally exceeding other sectors with the exception of finance, more price increases were expected before the new year began.
Reuters reported late last year that almost 30 pharmaceutical companies notified California’s agencies that they plan to raise the prices of their drugs. Most significantly, the article notes that the United States, a country that leaves drug pricing entirely to “market competition,” has higher prices for drugs than any other country.
For example, a pre-filled carton of two syringes containing Humira costs an average of $2,669 in the United States, but only $1,362 in the United Kingdom and $822 in Switzerland.
Another striking feature of the drug price phenomenon is its astronomical rise in comparison to the inflation rate. According to a report released by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) in December, the retail prices of 768 widely used prescription drugs rose 50 times higher than the general rate of inflation.
President Donald Trump told members of his cabinet in October that he expected the prices of drugs to decrease tremendously this year. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar also attended the meeting. HHS has since proposed policy changes aimed at lowering the cost of medications.
The so-called “pressure” that Trump has applied to the giant pharmaceutical conglomerates has been nothing short of lip-service against a rapacious and widely despised industry.
As Rx Savings Solutions CEO Michael Rea noted in Business Insider, “I think the calls for decreases or no increases by the president, the public and payers are largely disregarded.” He continued, “If they’re hitting their numbers, they’re going to continue using the practice that allows them to do that.”
The proposed policy changes are not expected to alleviate the high costs of medications in a country that has the most lucrative market for manufacturers. These measures fall significantly short of governmental control over negotiating and regulating drug prices.
Even as public outrage has spread over the perpetual price increases, the response of the pharmaceutical industry has amounted to sheer indifference. Ronny Gal, an analyst for Bernstein Research, told Business Insider that there could be a “step up in both the number and magnitude of list price increases.”
“However,” he continued, “while individual companies may do well, the price increases taken together would suggest Pharma is ‘tone deaf’ to public concerns.”
The unaffordability of medications and the rising profits of big pharma demonstrate the incompatibility between the needs of the majority of the population and the profit interests of the ruling class.
Drug Rehab Centers are Fueling Homeless Epidemic in California
Kevork
Djansezian/Getty Images
Drug rehabilitation or “rehab” centers are increasingly being seen
as a contributing factor in the homeless epidemic that has swept across
the Golden State.
“There’s
evidence to suggest a portion of the growth [of homelessness] in some Orange
County cities, and to a lesser degree in Los Angeles, can be attributed to the
rehab industry’s aggressive recruitment of addicts – and their lucrative
insurance payments – from around the country,” the Orange County
Register noted in a recent article.
The issue rests in the fact that the drug rehab centers’
business models actually wind up leaving addicts stranded on the streets. The
rehab model is also highly lucrative, bringing in hundreds of thousands to
millions of dollars per year.
Often, once a patient’s insurance money runs out, rehab homes
and facilities will kick him or her out on the street, which results in relapse
and, often, homelessness.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, over 60
percent of people who receive drug rehabilitation will relapse. Many of
these individuals wind up homeless.
The National
Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency estimates that over 23 million Americans (age 12 and older) are
addicted to alcohol and other drugs. According to the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), just under 11% (2.5 million) received care at an
addiction treatment facility in 2012. SAMHSA also estimates that the market for
addiction treatment is about $35 billion per year.
According to Los Angeles County’s annual homeless count, the
region’s homeless population has grown 23 percent since 2016. The study
also found that the number of homeless people in L.A. County whose last
residence was out of state increased by 21 percent.
The Register points out that in
Florida, there is a strong link between rehab and drug-treatment facilities and
homelessness, and particularly in Palm Beach County, where government
counts reportedly found a 73 percent increase over the past two years in the
number of homeless youth between the ages of 18 and 24.
“The (rehab
patients) are not going back home to the Northeast,” Palm Beach County State
Attorney Dave Aronberg, who leads the county’s Sober Home Task Force, told
the Register. “The
incentives are too great to remain here: the free rent, the free transportation,
the lifestyle. They’ve set up these individuals for failure.”
Adelle
Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News.
Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
Jeff Sessions Creates
‘Opioid Tsar’ as Overdose
Deaths Surpass Those from
Breast Cancer
Attorney General Jeff Sessions created a new “senior position” at the
Department of Justice Wednesday, director of opioid enforcement and prevention
efforts, to help combat what is now far and away the deadliest drug epidemic in
American history.
“With one American dying of a drug overdose every nine minutes,
we need all hands on deck,” Attorney General Sessions said of the
decision. He continued:
That’s why
President Trump has made ending the drug epidemic a top priority. This
Department of Justice embraces that goal, and we have taken a number of steps
this year to do our part. We have indicted hundreds of defendants for drug
related healthcare fraud, sent more prosecutors to where they’re needed most,
and we’ve taken on the gangs and cartels. Today we take the next step: creating
a senior level official position at the Department to focus entirely on this
issue. This Department will continue to follow the President’s lead, and I am
confident that we can and will turn the tide of the drug crisis.
The
decision was announced the same day Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) released new
numbers putting total estimated drug overdose deaths at 63,600 for 2016. This
figure is more than triple that of 1999 and up sharply even from the beginning
of this record-setting decade. The
number outpaces earlier 2016 estimates
of 59,000 and outstrips deaths
from influenza and pneumonia.
The biggest driver of this tragedy
is the rising of opioids, both traditional semi-synthetic or natural opioids
like heroin and oxycodone and the newer fully-synthetic and extraordinarily
potent opioids like fentanyl and carfentanyl that drug dealers have rapidly
pushed into the supply stream. The latter category of deaths has increased
especially rapidly, doubling just from 2015 to 2016, according to the CDC.
CNN’s
interpretation of the numbers puts opioid
overdoses at roughly two-thirds of drug deaths, 42,249, more than all deaths
from breast cancer.
Sessions
has made containing the opioid crisis a
major focus of his tenure at DOJ. Last month, for example, he announced the
first new Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) field office since the late
1990s. Located in Louisville, Kentucky, this office will cover West Virginia,
Kentucky, and Tennessee. The CDC’s new report indicates West Virginia is
the state hardest hit by overdoses, with a shocking age-adjusted 52 deaths per
100,000 people.
“I know that this crisis is
daunting- the death rates are stunning- and it can be discouraging,” Sessions
said at that time. “But we will turn the tide. When the men and women of law
enforcement work effectively in a focused way, we can stop the growth of
destructive addiction, keep the American people safe, and save lives.”
Drug deaths drive down US
life expectancy for second year
Two reports published yesterday by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reveal that the life expectancy of the American working class is declining due to an increase in drug overdoses and suicides.
The data reflects, in
empirical terms, the social devastation wrought on the lives of millions of
people by decades of bipartisan policies aimed at enriching the wealthy. The
decline in life expectancy, a fundamental measure of social progress, is a historical
milestone in the decline of American capitalism. This is the second year in a
row that life expectancy has fallen in the US, marking the first time in nearly
half a century that life expectancy has declined in consecutive years.
Life expectancy dropped
from 78.7 years in 2015 to 78.6 years in 2016, driven by a 0.2-year decline
from 76.3 to 76.1 years among men. Life expectancy for women remained at 81.1
years, as the gap between women and men reached an all-time high.
However, life
expectancy for those who make it to old age continues to improve, and the
mortality rates for heart disease, cancer, and other illnesses are declining as
technological and medical advances improve the capacity to extend human life.
The decline in life expectancy is caused by a dramatic increase in the
mortality rate among those under age 44 who are overdosing, particularly on
opioids, or taking their own lives.
The CDC report shows
a 21 percent year-to-year increase in drug overdoses, which took the lives of
63,600 people in 2016. It is as if each year, a city the size of Palo Alto,
California; Bismarck, North Dakota; or Fort Myers, Florida was killed off
entirely. Since 2006, roughly 430,000 people have died of drug overdose, more
than the number of US soldiers killed during World War II. An army of people
who should be alive today is not.
A total of 42,249
people died from opioid overdoses in 2016, a 28 percent increase from the year
before. While Barack Obama was traveling the country on behalf of Hillary
Clinton, proclaiming, “America is already great,” over 90 people were dying
each day from opioids alone.
Corporations have
been flooding poor areas with pills and are shielded from prosecution by the
government. Between 2007 and 2012, for example, drug distributor Miami-Luken
shipped 11 million doses of oxycodone and hydrocodone into Mingo County, West
Virginia, which has a population of 25,000.
Former Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official Joe
Rannazzisi told 60 Minutes in
October that it is “a fact” that companies inundate poor areas with the
knowledge that many will die as a result. While lawsuits against the drug
companies have forced paltry penalties of several million dollars, this is part
of the cost of doing business. The Obama administration slashed the number of
DEA cases against drug distributors by 69.5 percent between 2011 and 2014.
The decline in life
expectancy and the increase in drug overdoses are the product of a massive
growth in social inequality. Daniel Kim, a professor at Northeastern University,
told Reuters yesterday that “what we know from numerous health studies is that
a wider gap between the rich and the poor means that more people will die
unnecessarily.”
Over the past 40
years, the Democratic and Republican parties have been engaged in a conscious
strategy to pare back the gains won by the working class through the social
struggles of the early 20th century. A bipartisan cabal has slashed wages,
eliminated pensions, cut social programs, reduced taxes on the rich, and done
away with employer-provided healthcare.
In the process, the
government has transferred trillions from the working class into the bank
accounts of the financial elite. Today, the top 10 percent owns 77 percent of
the wealth. The richest 3 billionaires own as much as the poorest 160
million—half the country’s population.
The social
counterrevolution was intensified under the Democratic administration of Barack
Obama, which oversaw the bailout of the banks following the 2008 financial
crisis, conducted the bailouts of the auto industry that slashed the wages of
autoworkers to historic lows, and enforced the Detroit bankruptcy. The
enactment of Obamacare has coincided with a drastic increase in the number of
drug overdose deaths. While the rate per 100,000 of overdoses was increasing by
3 percent from 2006 to 2014, it began increasing by 18 percent per year in
2014, the year Obamacare came into force.
The death rate will
continue to rise as the Trump administration deepens tax cuts for the wealthy.
Citing Kim’s research, Reuters wrote, “the income inequality produced by the
[tax bill] will mean 29,689 more deaths each year, perhaps more.” Billions in
cuts to Medicare, mandated by laws that require budget cuts to match drops in
revenue, will lead to the deaths of thousands more.
The victims of the
opioid crisis come from all regions and social backgrounds, but the
overwhelming majority of those killed are poor and working class. According to
last year’s CDC data, 90 percent were white, and most were men, with overdoses
for whites roughly triple the rate for African-Americans and double the rate
for Latinos. The Native American overdose rate equals the rate for whites.
This reality exposes
the reactionary lies advanced by Black Lives Matter and its claims of “white
supremacy,” and by the #MeToo movement, which asserts that society is organized
on the principle of patriarchy and male domination.
New York Times contributor and
racial politics proponent Michael Eric Dyson recently attempted to turn the
opioid crisis into an example of white privilege when he said in March 2017,
“White brothers and sisters have been medicalized in terms of their trauma and
addiction. Black and brown people have been criminalized for their trauma and
addiction.”
Seething with contempt for the working class, Dyson ignores the
fact that if adequate medical services were available,
tens of thousands would not die each year from drug overdose. Instead of
helping the victims, state governments have responded by calling in the
National Guard to police the streets (West Virginia) and by calling for
quadrupling jail terms for opioid users (New Jersey). Meanwhile, both parties
voted to increase military spending by $80 billion over last year’s levels.
The calls for expropriating the billions of dollars the drug
companies have made from the ongoing crisis. This money, and the personal
wealth of the corporate and financial aristocracy, must be put into an
emergency fund to pay for the immediate construction of a network of hospitals
and health clinics, staffed with well-trained doctors, to provide permanent,
free medical care to all those effected.
Rehabilitation
centers must be expanded and new ones built so that the millions with addiction
and dependency problems can seek help free of charge. A 90 percent tax must be
imposed on all income above five million dollars to provide funds for massive
jobs and public works programs in those areas hardest hit by the crisis to
alleviate inequality and poverty.
These demands can
only be met through the building of a mass movement of the working class,
independent of the Democratic and Republican parties, aimed at linking workers
of all races and nationalities in a common fight against the capitalist system.
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