It is more expensive to produce drugs that require complex procedures.
Labeling? etc. Hardly. The situation exploded in 2010.
With the windfall that Big Pharma is expecting from Obamacare, any old excuse will do while they reduce costs=maximizing profits until their ship comes in.
THIS IS A MORAL AND ETHICAL ISSUE.
For any industry to claim clerical errors for 2 years when patients lives are at stake is unconscionable.
Have you heard of the IPAB--the "Independent" Payment Advisory Board? This is a non-clinical board that selects medical care based on its cost-benefit ratio. It's part of Obamacare, and it has big pharma scared.
How might an IPAB-run healthcare system work? It will necessarily look to generics as the first option in any doctor-prescribed script. That goes from anti-biotics, to cardio-vascular meds, all the way to oncology drugs.
If you're prescribed an older, less-efficacious generic, you'll have to prove it's not as effective for you, before you receive a script for a newer medicine. Don't get me wrong, generics were brand names at one time, and many of them work quite well. but considering that generics will be the first, and perhaps even the second line of treatment in most disease states, how will that be good for Big Pharma?
I wonder if it’s the beginnings of rationing.
Actually it is a business issue.
Aside from the various problems noted, the companies have no moral or legal responsibility to produce anything that does not make a profit. Drug companies are not responsible to or for people with cancer.
So far as ethics go, where is there an ethical break down?
Lastly, name 3 people who died of cancer because the drugs were no longer available.