February 11, 2019: Capitalism Has No Soul - Catalyst Jacks the Price of Life-Saving Drug

 

2/11/19: Every day, I vow: You are not going to tumble down the rabbit hole. You will not try to cover all the insanity there is to see in Trumpistan. 

So, let’s stick to one example today. Once again, we have proof of the predatory nature of many business and corporate types. 

 

A drug once available free will cost $375,000. 

Three thousand unlucky Americans suffer from Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome (LEMS), a rare and crippling neuromuscular disease. Until recently, under an FDA program that guaranteed “compassionate use,” a drug called 3,4-DAP was available to them free for treatment. 

NBC explains what happened next: 

Since 1992, 3,4-DAP, was made by Jacobus Pharmaceuticals, a small New Jersey company, until a different company, Catalyst, recently received the exclusive rights to the drug. Catalyst added a preservative, renamed it Firdapse, and is now charging north of $375,000 a year for the life-changing drug.

 

While history shows (this liberal blogger would posit) that capitalism is the system that promotes the greatest benefits for the greatest number, no one should imagine that morality governs the current or any other iteration of capitalism. It was legal to buy and sell slaves in 1819. Coal mining companies could require workers to accept payment in scrip and shop at the company store in 1919. Catalyst can charge a fortune for a drug the company didn’t invent in 2019. 

All they did was add a preservative, give the drug a slightly different chemical configuration, and market Firdapse as a “new product.” 

You don’t have to be a socialist to argue that capitalism, as it functions in America today, could use a tune up for sure.

Slave auctions were once legal.

October 8, 2019: Bad Year for Big Pharma, Addicts, Congressional Crooks, and Fish

 

Republicans used socialism to scare people.

Big Pharma actually kills them.

10/8/19: Republicans are still in a dither over Democrats and their flirtation with Bernie Sanders and socialism, Meanwhile, we keep getting lessons in the grotesque imperfections of capitalism. For example: Big Pharma. 

Faced with thousands of opioid-related lawsuits, manufacturers and distributors begin caving. Three of the largest distributors and two manufacturers offer $22 billion in damages and promise to spend an additional $28 billion on drugs to combat the damage opioids have caused.

 

In related news, Dr. Joel Smithers, a capitalist if ever there was one, is sentenced to 40 years in prison. His crime: writing 500,000 opioid prescriptions, mostly bogus, and pushing millions of pills out to the streets. His sentence won’t help the 2.5 million Americans who are currently addicted. Nor will it bring back the tens of thousands who have died from opioid overdoses since 2000. 

It’s one small step for mankind, though.

 

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IN OTHER NEWS, Congressman Chris Collins, who represented an upstate district in New York, resigns and pleads guilty to charges of insider trading. Collins had long insisted on his innocence – and President Trump had talked about how unfair it was that Collins was investigated in the first place. Now the former lawmaker is a felon, facing up to five years in prison. 

His son, Cameron, pleads guilty the next day. Prosecutors note that the pair, and the father of Cameron’s fiancé, avoided more than $800,000 in losses by dumping stock, based on insider tips.

 

So, bad day for Mr. Collins, Mr. Collins, and the younger Mr. Collins’ future father-in-law. Good day, however, for justice.

 

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WE ALSO LEARN that the sea is running out of fish. Scientists warn that unless the nations of the world face the challenge, food supplies crucial to hundreds of millions of human beings will begin to decline. Climate change alone may drive down catch rates by 24% by the end of this century. 

A third of all fishing stocks are already overfished at unsustainable rates; and 90% of stocks are fully exploited. 

Bad year for fish.

Resources are finite.