Free Republic

I know, the headline sounds dramatic. It's true. Trump has just released his health care reform proposal. He is the only candidate that has put forward a plan that will force down the cost of medical care by as much as 80%, rendering Obamacare unnecessary along with Medicare. Require price transparency from all healthcare providers, especially doctors and healthcare organizations like clinics and hospitals. Individuals should be able to shop to find the best prices for procedures, exams or any other medical-related procedure. .... Remove barriers to entry into free markets for drug providers that offer safe, reliable and cheaper...

Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, a Louisville Democrat, has introduced a bill that would force men who want to use erectile dysfunction drugs to jump through a series of humiliating hoops beforehand, such as visiting a doctor twice and getting notes from their wives. "I want to protect these men from themselves," Marzian, who is a nurse, told the Courier-Journal. [Snip] The lawmaker told the paper that she intends to introduce a bill that would require gun buyers to get counseling from victims of gun violence 24 hours ahead of a firearms purchase. "I'm just making sure the government is taking...

Last evening, Ted Cruz was at a town hall meeting in Salem, NH, when he was hit with a question about drug abuse. If you’ve followed Cruz’s campaign, you know that his own family has experience loss due to drug abuse. His older sister, Miriam became addicted to pain pills following and accident and slid into a life of drug abuse. Because it is a campaign season, the left used the town hall as an excuse for some low-level street theater. Not a day goes by on the New Hampshire campaign trail without residents grilling the men and women running...

Martin Shkreli, who drew national scorn for hiking the cost of a life-saving drug 4,000 percent overnight, has been arrested, according to multiple reports early Thursday.The 32-year-old founder and CEO of Turing Pharmaceutical made headlines in September for raising the price of Daraprim, often used to treat HIV and AIDS patients, from $13.50 per pill to $750 per pill after buying the rights to the drug.His arrest is reportedly not related to that price increase.Shkreli is accused of illegally taking stock from a biotechnology firm he launched in 2011 called Retrophin Inc., Bloomberg reported, and using it to pay off...

The CDC, by definition, is a private corporation working on behalf of its stakeholders, which include key players in the pharmaceutical and vaccine industries that profit from the spread of disease, not from real prevention and cures.

ISIS Pharmaceuticals could have a new name soon. According to a report on Monday by CNNMoney's Matt Egan, the company is considering the switch following the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday. The attacks left 129 people dead and 352 wounded. ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the attacks. ISIS Pharmaceuticals, which has the ticker ISIS, is a $7.2 billion biotech company that develops drugs that treat several conditions including cancer and heart conditions. ISIS Pharma's vice president for corporate communications and investor relations D. Wade Walke told CNNMoney that Friday's attacks weighed on...

Sorry, Valeant. The ladies just aren’t feeling it. Addyi, the so-called “female Viagra” pill made by Valeant Pharmaceuticals’ Sprout unit, is off to a slow start, with doctors writing just 227 prescriptions in its first few weeks on the market, according to a new report. That compares to the more than half a million men who got prescriptions for Viagra in its first month on the market in 1998, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

Sanofi US Issues Voluntary Nationwide Recall of Auvi‑Q® Due to Potential Inaccurate Dosage Delivery Sanofi US is voluntarily recalling all Auvi‑Q® (epinephrine injection, USP). The recall involves all Auvi‑Q currently on the market and includes both the 0.15 mg and 0.3 mg strengths for hospitals, retailers and consumers. This includes lot number 2299596 through 3037230, which expire March 2016 through December 2016. The products have been found to potentially have inaccurate dosage delivery. If a patient experiencing a serious allergic reaction (i.e., anaphylaxis) did not receive the intended dose, there could be significant health consequences, including death because anaphylaxis...

"News that Turing, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and other drugmakers have bought rights to old, cheap medicines that are the only treatment for serious diseases and then hiked prices severalfold has angered patients. It's triggered government investigations, politicians' proposals to fight "price gouging," heavy media scrutiny and a big slump in biotech stock prices." "Turing's Shkreli, under fire from all sides, said late last month that he would lower the price of Daraprim, but hasn't so far. A Turing spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment Thursday but recently noted the company is capping patient copayments at $10."

I don't see any other logical reason for him speaking the way he did.

Gripe as we might, consumers understand that price increases do happen. What’s not as easily understood is how the price for something can go from $13.50 one day to $750 the next — especially when it’s a generic drug used to save lives. For decades, Daraprim (pyrimethamine), an anti-parasitic used to treat malaria and toxoplasmosis, had been made by GlaxoSmithKline and sold for as little as $1/tablet until not that long ago. Then in 2010 GSK sold the drug to CorePharma, which began to raise the price. Within a year, revenue from Daraprim jumped nearly ten times even though the...

PharmedOut is a Georgetown University Medical Center project that advances evidence-based prescribing, and educates healthcare professionals about pharmaceutical marketing practices. Founded in January, 2007, it is an Internet-based alternative for doctors seeking Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses, not sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. Inasmuch as the industry derives its greatest profits from new proprietary drugs, it has a built-in tendency to tout them, even though newer is not always better. One example, cited at the time of PharmedOut’s founding, came from Georgetown Ob-Gyn doctor Anthony Scialli: “Take oral contraceptives. Over the years they have increased in number, but there haven’t...

An ancient concoction for eye infections seems to really work. The potion, which contains cattle bile, kills the "superbug" methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, researchers at Britain's University of Nottingham report. In fact, it worked better than the current gold standard for MRSA infections of the flesh, the antibiotic vancomycin, an expert at Texas Tech University found. Now researchers are working to see just what's in the salve that kills germs so effectively. It started with a joint project by two wildly different departments at the University of Nottingham. Dr. Christina Lee, an Anglo-Saxon expert in the School of English,...

FULL TITLE: FDA Approves Merck's HPV Vaccine, GARDASIL®9, to Prevent Cancers and Other Diseases Caused by Nine HPV types – Including Types that Cause About 90% of Cervical Cancer Cases KENILWORTH, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Merck (NYSE:MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved GARDASIL®9 (Human Papillomavirus 9-valent Vaccine, Recombinant), Merck’s 9-valent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, for use in girls and young women 9 to 26 years of age for the prevention of cervical, vulvar, vaginal, and anal cancers caused by HPV types 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52 and...

Does the FDA have its own independent laboratories or does it farm out the lab testing of drugs to the pharmaceutical companies themselves? I have been unable to find out this information. In other words, does the FDA approval process rely upon completely independent governmentally operated labs? Or does the FDA depend upon test results provided by the pharmaceutical companies themselves? SANDY KRAMER, Ph.D.

Andy Stern wasn’t kidding when he publicly stated the most famous rallying cry of Communism:[1] Stern professed, “Workers of the World Unite? It’s not just a slogan anymore.” Snip SIGA Technologies, Inc. is a company specializing in the development of pharmaceutical agents to combat bio-warfare pathogens and it was announced on June 21, 2010 that Andy Stern is joining SIGA’s Board of Directors. But wait, it gets even better… SIGA is also a Federal contractor for the government. For a list of SIGA’s contracts with the Federal government, go to: http://www.usaspending.gov/search?query=&searchtype=JTdFZnElM0Q…. SNIP Without question, Andy Stern’s new position at SIGA...

The Obama administration has failed us. With that in mind, potential treatments/vaccines for Ebola are being worked on and tested as we speak, and despite the lack of ability to pay for any potential vaccine on the part of almost all western Africans, pharmaceutical companies should develop said vaccine(s) (if at all possible) and distribute them free of cost to those who cannot afford them. While I do support huge profits to be made by pharmaceutical companies, I believe that there are exceptions to the rule, and I do believe that this is the time and instance for this very...

Pharmaceutical companies say the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) new social media rules would have a "chilling" effect on the industry and leave consumers in the dark.The FDA in June released draft guidelines for how drug firms should use social networks like Facebook and Twitter. But pharmaceutical companies are concerned the FDA would hold them responsible for misinformation about their products posted online by third parties that the companies have little to no control over. They say the rules would discourage them from interacting on social networks, leaving consumers without useful information about their products."Given the extraordinary growth of the...

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (CBS) — A major pharmaceutical company is planning another round of layoffs that again will hit Montgomery County hard. On the heels of more than 650 job cuts at its West Point manufacturing and research plant in late 2013 and earlier this year, Merck plans to let go another 600 employees by the end of August. The company has already filed notices with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor which says the jobs are being cut in North Wales and Lansdale. County Commissioner Josh Shapiro is disappointed with the news, but says they’re working to help those affected.

It’s called the “little pink pill,” a tiny tablet that could have a huge impact on treating female sexual dysfunction. If it’s approved, it would become the first drug of its kind on the market. But that’s a big IF. The drug Flibanserin is locked in a heated battle for approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, raising controversial questions about why there are so many sexual enhancement drugs available for men and zero for women. Cindy Whitehead, the founder and COO of Sprout Pharmaceuticals, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based company focused on producing only Flibanserin, has been fighting for...