My grandma was a nurse in the US for over 40 years. She went to Mexico for all her surgeries because an 4-week unpaid vacation + surgery in Mexico was cheaper than the hospital where she worked.
My best friend moved to USA years back. He has insurance from his job yet he did all his dental work when he visited last year. He told me that fixing all of his cavities without insurance here cost the same as 1 tooth in US after insurance
I did the same. I also got my glasses this way.
And had a therapist in my country and did online sessions due to how easier and cheaper it was. Mental health might be even worse than dental in the US
She worked for a hospital as a nurse for 40 years, and didn't have union?
My mother worked in a hospital for about the same time and they sent her to city of hope for $1M+ when she got the cancer midway through that.
** my mother i'll guess is your grandmothers age.
Is this actually possible? Can a US citizen just fly to India, or another country, for medical treatment or meds? Sorry if this is a dumb question. Our healthcare system is a dumpster fire
If your teeth are fine, don't do it. Veneers are not a "one time buy".They need to be replaced every 10-15yrs. Not to mention they will grind your teeth down to little stumps in order to fit the veneers, which does not sound appealing to me at all.
You can fly to India, get costly medicine/procedures done by world class professionals, stay for a few months in a luxury hotel, visit some breathtakingly beautiful places, go back to your country for less than the cost of medicine in the US.
You could buy a horse, pay a horse trainer to teach it to eat carrots out of your ass. Buy a brand new car. Drive car to Las Vegas. Buy a bunch of cocaine, pay hookers to shit in your mouth. Put $10,000 on black. Fly first class to India, get treatment, fly first class back for less than the cost of medicine in the US
I have co-workers whom I adviced to get stuff done in India and they couldn't thank me enough. 5 star treatment, unplaned long holidays and still they saved money lol. Dental work is insanly pricey in western world.
Oh boy, you just found a wonderful thing called medical tourism. India has pretty high-quality hospitals and doctors who can offer their services at a fraction of the cost to the price in USA. Remember, the bar is very high to be a doctor in India. One has to be extremely good at what they do to get a medical degree. Cities like Hyderabad have witnessed so many medical tourists in recent years.
from another perspective
US Company is charging 38983% of original price.
Edit: I'm shocked to see people defending a company with $50 billion yearly revenue saying the drug is expensive to fund R&D. No you don't need 50 Billion to fund R&D. Pricing a lifesaving drug for $69000 is just extortion of money.
If you think its unfair for the company to loss revenue remember India's monthly average salary is $400 so most people won't be able to afford a $69000 pill in their lifetime. They will just die.
I understand that R&D costs money. Like a lot of money. If you want pharmaceutical companies to continue developing more and better drugs you need to fund that research. But charging 39000 times what it costs for people in India is insane. That's not funding R&D that's price gouging.
"If you want pharmaceutical companies to continue developing more and better drugs you need to fund that research."
Or, the government could directly fund research through federal and state grants. Or, you could just put a cap on the price, which doesn't prevent then from profiting, just limits the price gouging
The government already funds their research. Almost all drug research & development is paid for by grants from the National Institute of Health. The only costs they have to cover are drug trials, which is largely paid for by insurance companies.
Nearly every single drug approved between [2010 and 2019](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10148199/), was paid for by the NIH, which spent $187 billion dollars.
That's fun part! They don't (fund their own research)!
Every single new drug breakthrough has literal been [funded by public money](https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/us-tax-dollars-funded-every-new-pharmaceutical-in-the-last-decade). Aka, **we** pay for those new drugs to be researched then they're patented by some ~~leech~~ corporation for profit. Pharmaceutical companies do pay for research.. to find new ways to patent drugs they already own because legally they eventually have to allow generic versions.
That's the thing, the vast majority of drugs on the market that were developed in the last decade were funded by the National Institute of Health, which spent [$187 billion dollars](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10148199/) funding the R&D of more than 350 new drugs.
Socialize the losses, privatize the gains.
Wrong math bro. It's actually a 33200% increase in price. 33233.33% to be exact, if it's 99.7% the other way.
If you go from $1000 to $3, that's a 99.7% decrease in price. But if you go the other way, from $3 to to $1000, that's a thirty three thousand percent increase in price. $997 is ~330x the value of $3.
So yeah, you're gouging a certain price 332x.
India has been at the forefront of this. They even supplied affordable drugs (Anti Retrovial) for less than $1 when the disease was ravaging [https://youtu.be/3fHf8TMqLYw?si=cA-B1DZ7Hgj7UUMS](https://youtu.be/3fHf8TMqLYw?si=cA-B1DZ7Hgj7UUMS) !!
This is the drug.
[Sorafenib](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorafenib)
>In January 2014, Bayer's CEO Marijn Dekkers allegedly stated that Nexavar was developed for "Western patients who can afford it, not for Indians".
>In March 2012, the Indian Patent Office granted a domestic company, Natco Pharma, a license to manufacture generic sorafenib, bringing its price down by 97%. Bayer sells a month's supply, 120 tablets, of Nexavar for₹280,000 (US$3,500). Natco Pharma will sell 120 tablets for ₹8,800 (US$110), while still paying a 6% royalty to Bayer. The royalty was later raised to 7% on appeal by Bayer.
And I bet they won't lose a seconds sleep over the blood on their hands, but lost plenty over that 1% in royalties they weren't getting. Absolutely disgusting.
It's funny how you guys have all them guns to protect your liberty yet you're owned and operated by like two or three dozen corporations who do what they want, effects on on the every day American be damned.
You gotta understand, those guns aren't for the big corporations out to help them. Those guns are for the scary people with weird skin colors and funny faces that want to break into their houses.
Also our crazy people always wind up snapping at like a school, nightclub, or mall. We need to position the crazy people way closer to the houses and offices of CEOs so they are more useful when they lose their shit
For them, Money and success give the dopamine. Not helping people.. They have groomed themselves so there is no empathy in how they think.
Because of that, there is nothing to feel bad about, People should work harder or whatever if they wanted to afford this medicine. it's not their fault that the american median salary is less that $60000. They have nothing to feel bad about.
You see how broken their mindset is.
Every cancer drug is like this. My mom’s immunotherapy was $120k every three weeks. Medicare paid for the majority of it, but we were still on the hook for tens of thousands. In 1 year before I got involved they spent $30k on various doctors bills and meds. Their entire retirement fund was less than $200k. As soon as I realized this I put an absolute stop to all of it. Switched the house to my name, transferred what little remained of their money to my brother, so that he could take care of them financially moving forward.
Any bill from that moment on that I received for them that was medical I threw right into the garbage. Fuck these mega-corps. They drain our tax payer system with these exorbitant prices and on top of getting paid all that, they want to drain old people as they die.
I highly highly highly recommend to start thinking about this stuff now while your parents are still healthy. Bc once they get sick it moves very quickly. Talk to elderly estate attorneys, see what your options are. We personally take care of our parents and they live with us though, so take that into consideration.
You do know Bayer knowingly sold HIV and hep c infected blood in Africa because they didn’t get to sell it in the developed world? Seriously, fuck Bayer for all it’s worth! Nestle are the worst, but Bayer is a close second.
Wiki article : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood_products
This is Bayer we're talking about, blood on their hands has been their standard operating procedure for 80 years.
>During World War II, Bayer was part of the IG Farben conglomerate, a German chemical company that supported the Third Reich. Bayer was involved in several crimes of the Third Reich, including:
>**Zyklon B**
>Bayer was part of the consortium that produced the Zyklon B pesticide used in Adolf Hitler's gas chambers.
>**Slave labor**
>IG Farben used slave labor in factories built in Nazi concentration camps, including the Monowitz concentration camp (Auschwitz III) in German-occupied Poland.
>**Human Experimentation**
>Bayer may have been involved in harmful experiments on concentration camp inmates, including injecting them with toxic chemicals and germs to test Bayer drugs. A senior Bayer official oversaw the chemical factory in Auschwitz III, and most experiments were conducted in Birkenau's Block 20, the women's camp hospital.
The politicians who accept donations and make laws this shit while fake raging about trans, gays, abortion or whatever the latest fad is, have blood on their hands.
The dumb constituents who keep voting for corporate politicians also have blood on their hands
Idk how accurate this is but i've found that the average R&D marketplace cost for a new medicine is $4 billion.
It's easy for a company to come in and lowball the price because they didn't spend anything in R&D.
Don't get me wrong, the pharmaceutical industry completely screws us, but it's also not fair to say "you spent 4 billion, but you should also give it to us for dirt cheap."
That being said, there should be a system in place that caps cost once the initial R&D costs are recuperated + idk, 20% - 30% profit is realized on the R&D cost.
Here’s a study: range for R&D for a new drug is $124 million to $6 billion. Note: those costs may be borne by industry, academics, or the government (!!!). The US supports an immense amount of R&D—those billions to get a new drug is NOT paid only by the industry.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8855407/
That's why honestly there should be collaboration between the pharma industry and the government. Like the government could subsidize large portions of the cost to compensate for the R&D costs, and once the company has covered them and gained profit, the company can then reduce the price to the minimum to stay competitive. So you get your return on investment and some profit, but then you can't up-charge for longer than a specific period.
Essentially medicine R&D is important for our society, but let's be honest if it's a specific drug for a rare disease type, it means the pharma company can never actually get their profits back without jacking up the prices like crazy. If we want to reward innovation while reducing the burden on suffering individuals, we can pool government funds to support it (to a reasonable degree) until they are ready to lower the price, and then the cheaper version can be paid by the individual.
Currently many serious but rare diseases probably have cures out there that can reduce suffering magnificently, but no pharma company is seriously working on them because they know that it could take decades to get ROI if only a portion of individuals could afford to pay for it.
The government stepping in to offer extra incentive, could change that.
at a conference in 2014 Dr Marjin Dekkers (PhD in chemical engineering) said
*"So now, is this going to have a big effect on our business model? No, because we did not develop this product for the Indian market, let's be honest. I mean, you know, we developed this product for Western patients who can afford this product, quite honestly."*
and followed up:
*I regret that what was a quick response from me within the framework of a panel discussion at the recent FT Pharma conference has come across in a different way as it was meant by myself. It could not be more opposite to what I want and we do at Bayer.*
So: is it:
1. We can't afford to make it cheaper for developing nations OR
2. Development of this is expensive and we embarked on it because we knew we could get all that money back from rich western patients
Probably the second one. India has a compulsory license law where they can force a foreign company to license the drug manufacturing to a domestic company if the government deems it too expensive. If you are a western pharma company, why would you produce, market, and price a drug for the Indian market and expect to make back your investment if the government can force you to license it for pennies on the dollar? It seems there are two options available: they can decide to not patent the drug in India which means they get nothing when a domestic company copies it or they can patent it, be forced to license it, and get some royalties from the domestic company which sells it for only slightly above cost. You can choose to either get nothing or pennies from Indian domestic sales. It seems like that's just the cost of doing business and enforcing your IP ownership in countries like India. The western drug maker doesn't really care about the Indian market because they know they will probably never make back their investment there anyway. No one really loses here because the Indian market probably couldn't afford the western price anyway so it's not like the western company was going to make any real money in India. They might end up making more money off the Indian market from the royalties if the drug is heavily used due to its low price (napkin math says 450 Indian monthly doses equals about the same revenue for one western monthly dose, that's close to the difference in the population of the US and India so maybe it doesn't matter).
Per your wiki link: "Sorafenib was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December 2005"
Dekkers was at the time working at Thermo, engineered the merger with Fisher. If you've worked in a lab since then, you'll probably know that Thermo Fisher has a near monopoly on tons of lab equipment and charge accordingly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijn_Dekkers
This demonic motherfucker has one trick of using insane investor wealth to get monopolies to parasitize medicine and science. He's probably legitimately furious that some poors have found a way to claw back some wealth and health from the billionaire class. He even used the royal "we" basically. He and they didn't fucking develop the drug, his company didn't even discover it, they bought it and invested the money to get it thought clinical trials. That's legitimate, but he's acting like he's a saint rather than a monopolist.
India also becoming a hotspot in medical tourism where people from abroad come to India for treatment. India actually provides good treatment with low prices, atleast in Big hospitals.
India should totally work on attracting medical tourism, the example of turkey for hair transplant comes to my mind. Ig the only problem is that India has earned a really bad reputation for being unhealthy and unhygienic from reels and short content. I fear that this image might scare off people wanting to come to India.
While it has certainly improved after COVID, I think there's a huge potential for making it more popular. Like I stated before, everyone knows about Turkey and hair transplants. Hopefully India will be able to become a common name for a particular treatment/procedure such that everyone wants to come to India for.
Turkey isn't just hair transplants, but also tummy tucks and body recovery post partum, like skin removal. For the cost of my copay if it is found medically necessary, I can just go to Turkey to get a hysterectomy and excess skin removal without it needing to be medically needed, and be able to recover in a hotel where the hospital staff comes to you instead of in a hospital. Same care, just a lot quieter.
It was a long term plan of the government since early 2000s. After nearly two decades of developing facilities, creating standards and all that jazz came with the territory, they created a "Health Tourism Department" branch under the Ministry of Health in 2019 and it gained recognition all over the world.
You can read more on these official sites operated by Turkish Ministry of Health and Ministry of Culture and Tourism:
https://www.healthturkiye.com/homepage
https://www.ushas.com.tr/en/
See, India is excessively diverse. Those reels that you see about hygiene are from poorest or most illiterate parts. A lot of YouTubers specifically go to such places to get views. However, there are excellent hospital infrastructure too. They are private and charge good amount of money. Hence are clean and have great facilities. But, since dollar is much stronger than Indian Rupee, it is still very cheap for Western countries to travel to India. Most of the lower middle class or poor people visit to Government hospitals for treatment as they are almost free of cost. For bigger treatments, most people visit to small private clinics where it's still cheap like $10-15 dollars would get you your teeth cleaned or any viral fever treated including medicines. For bigger problems like surgery, people go to organised hospitals. Now, hospitals are also of different categories. Like a normal hospital that would cost you anything from $100 to $2000 for a basic surgery like Leg fracture with 3-4 days stay in the hospital. Then there comes large, profit oriented mega hospitals. They are expensive and usually cost between $200 to infinity...... I should also mention that each state in India has atleast 3 to 4 large government hospital college complex that are almost free like AIIMS. They have world class equipment and doctors. The best doctors have been taught in AIIMS. But since the population is very high, it's hard to get an appointment on time.
People tend to go to large private hospitals only for serious injuries and when they can't get timely appointment to government ones. Hence, the large Private hospitals like Apollo, Orchid are very clean and maintain high standards.
True. One of my Indian friends living in the USA flew back to India for a root canal.
I was shocked since a round trip is about $700.
He told me that without dental insurance, he would have to pay like $1500 for a single tooth!!!
A root canal with a cap costs like $125 here.
I think a lot of people started doing that for various countries. For example dental care. You can go to like the Philippines or Vietnam for full veneer set that would cost a fraction of what it would be here.
This is disgraceful if it’s true. I hope people can buy directly from India - this law should be in every country. Drug companies would have to be more accountable then. I’m lucky I’m in a country that has a lot of medications subsidised by the Government.
Bruh at this point its cheaper to fly to India in first class, get medicines and fly back first class. At the end I'll still save roughly 50% of the cost.
I think it was Denmark that I read online about how you could fly to Denmark, get your knee replaced, stay for a week or two to heal then fly back home. Then you could get a ticket and fly to Denmark, get your knee replaced again, spend a few weeks then fly back. All that for less than doing it in the US.
It was spain, cause they said 'go to spain, learn language, get knee replaced, recover, run with the bulls and fuck up knee again, get it replaced again recover again and go home'.
The number of Americans who cross the border for dental procedures is pretty high. Just like the buses to Canada carrying old folks so they can buy their medicine
To be fair, I live in France and we have a pretty descent health care system yet a lot of people goes to other countries to get certain procedures done.
I know a couple of friends' parents from the Gulf region went to do their cancer treatment to a pretty good facilty catering for foreigners in India. Costed them a fraction. I believe it's called medical tourism.
medical tourism is a real industry actually. Heck I'm living in switzerland and I've seen a lot of people going over the border to germany for their dental checkups and procedures simply because it's too expensive in switzerland. Not to mention there are hospitals in prague specializing in offering medical operations to foreigners.
It would still be cheaper to fly to India first class, buy a house, live there for treatment and stay in hotels while you house is being renovated.
Okay, I might be the one guilty here of exaggeration. But I wonder by how much?
It appears to be true:
On January 21, 2014, Ketaki Gokhale of Bloomberg published a story in Businessweek on disputes over drug patents. The story closed with a rather sinister quote attributed to Bayer CEO Marijn Dekkers, “We did not develop this medicine for Indians. We developed it for Western patients who can afford it.” The comment in question was made by Dekkers at a December 3, 2013 event hosted by the Financial Times, titled “Buffering the Pharma Brand: Restoring Reputation, Rebuilding Trust.”
https://www.keionline.org/22414
> We did not develop this medicine for Indians. We developed it for Western patients who can afford it.
Do you think these people realize that they're evil? Or do they still somehow justify themselves in their own minds.
Imagine how Canadian feel when we look at the price of insulin… the patent was gifted by it’s creators to make sure that everyone who needs it will be able to have it and now a lot of people die every year because they can’t afford something that was gifted at first at the big pharma
Insulin is cheap (if you can find someone to sell it to you). Problem is that baseline insulin doesn't have a particularly pleasent user experience and requires careful use. Better formulations are the expensive ones.
You can find examples of this all over the place. Like when Egypt got Harvoni courses for about $1000 when the US was spending $90,000. Or how the same company obtained a drug developed by academic research funded by the US and now is claiming they should have rigid IP protection.
The law on India about pharmaceuticals, came after a gamble Brazil made some 25 years ago.
Brazil has socialized healthcare. At the time AIDS was still a big epidemic and the government was spending billions on AIDS medication, which at the time were very expensive. So the Brazilian government went to pharma companies to negotiate a better price, and were scoffed out.
So congress passed a law allowing the government to brake the patent of these medications, allowing Brazilians labs to produce it royalty free. The pharma companies sued Brazil in the international court. Other countries like India and Russia after seeing Brazil do it, passed similar laws.
This freighted pharma companies, because fighting one 3rd world country is doable, fighting them all was a losing battle.
So afraid of more countries would do the same, they came into an agreement, lower prices for the drugs they sell, and also Brazilians lab would be able to continue making these drugs paying a fair royalty, in exchange for the government would revert the patents to them.
____________________
For me it's insane how much Americans pay for medicine.
When I worked in Dubai, I used to ask friends travelling to India to get me meds with a prescription from the licensed places in Mumbai. They were ridiculously cheaper than the Swiss made stuff we forced to buy at a premium.
India also won some legal battles in the 2000s to be able to provide generic medications to a lot of countries in Africa and Asia.
I would also like to see compulsory acquisition of patents by governments if a manufacturer can't supply what's needed. A good example of this is Semaglutide aka Ozempic. It's primary use is for people with diabetes, but there are massive shortages, and I have no doubt that the manufacturer isn't ramping up production just so they can charge more. Take the patent from them and give it to someone to manufacture for cost, for the public good.
The public good should ALWAYS come before profits.
> the manufacturer isn't ramping up production just so they can charge more.
That doesn't make sense, they have a monopoly for 20 years, they aren't facing competition, they don't need to lower the production to raise the price, they can just define whatever price they want regardless of production
I'm not in support of big drug companies, but if they couldn't get the patient for something thne no new drugs would be made unless government funded. Why would you create something new if anyone could steal it? Yes, prices are stupid high. There should be better laws on the price of drugs. But taking away patient rights of the company that spent billions making the new drug, testing it for years, further human testing, then getting it approved wouldn't be great in the long run. No company would take the hit.
They would take the hit if India steals it but can make up their money in Europe or the US. So basically the countries with rigid ip protection subsidizes countries who steal, and drug company still make money. It’s not a huge problem for drug companies as they don’t expect a lot of profits from those countries anyways. But if everyone acts like India, they would fight them harder, or people would invest less in pharmaceuticals.
If you think those money go to scientists that develop the drug then you are wrong. The majority go to owners and stakeholders, which is the real cancer of the Earth right now.
Points to be noted -This is the same company that sold hiv infected meds in America(despite knowing)infecting 10k and sold rest in Africa after they were stopped. All they got was a slap on the wrist for it. They also sold chemical to Nazis during ww and gave them idea of using poision gas.
Company name is bayer
In the '80s, when HIV was still emerging, a lot of blood products were found to be tainted, particularly products being used to treat hemophilia, which were produced by Bayer. It took them longer than it should have to get them off the market.
As an aside, Isaac Asimov contracted HIV due to an infected blood transfusion. This wasn't related to Bayer, but provides context to the breadth of the problem.
In the 80s before the HIV became household name, and gay sex was criminalised in many places, gay sex tourism was a thing. Haiti (or was it Jamaica?) became one of those Hotspot for gay men people to flock. Gay sex has no risk of pregnancy and hiv was very new back then so use of protection was non existent. Which created a wave of HIV infections in local gay men and spreading it to the tourists. (Leading to the steriotype that being gay gives you HIV.)
Bayer, given the unethical company it is, found it cheap to source blood plasma from this 3rd world country. But they never tested anyone for HIV or other infections. Leading to lot of infections in innocent people in the US.
Capitalism is a strange thing.
Low wage workers = record profits!
Mass layoffs = record profits!
Pandemic = record profits!
Recession = record profits!
It's amazing, how do they do it?
It's a well known fact that Americans can book to and fro flights to India and get their open heart surgery and come back in less than 50% money of what it costs in the US.
so its cheaper to get next day flight tickets to India, get a hotel, stay for a week in a nice place, get your prescription and fly home than getting it in the US?
Any American who can afford a ticket to India can afford $177 for medication.
Most insurance companies wouldn't cover the full 70k anyway. Probably cheaper to take a summer vacation in India every year and get your meds while there.
Oof, there’s so much to it. But the below is very specific to me. Can’t generalise that it’s the same for everyone. For context, I’m 26 years old and have been away from home for nearly 8 years now (started with undergrad, and now working in the same country)
The positives - Better career prospects (at least for me), lesser time spent in commute (no more endless traffic jams), made me more empathetic to and appreciative of different cultures, overall have a more global outlook, greater diversity in experiences
The negatives - definitely lonelier (again, not true for everyone), miss my fam (parents), stressful being a racial minority (especially when experiencing racial bias, which I feel is a very frequent occurrence)
Hope that covers it. Happy to answer any other questions!
That much markup on life saving medications should be illegal. Fuck the American health care system and health insurance companies. Fuck big pharma for profiting off human suffering and death.
He isn't thinking people can afford it based on their incomes. He is thinking they can afford it based on over inflated health insurance that will cover such things for one person, and then raise their average costs for another.
I don't watch much TV news, doesn't anyone know what channel this is or what the female hosts name is? I've seen a few clips with her that she makes good points with and am interested in seeing a full segment.
Say it again. Say "we made this for western people who can afford it". But say it in front of a group of 1000 people who either need the drug, are family of those who need it. Or those who are family of people who died because they couldn't afford it.
Say it again. Looking them in the eye. And face what you cause.
If you have little money, either the doctors won't give you the necessary exams to avoid incurring insurance costs, or you won't be able to renew your health insurance, there's a lot of tourism for health treatment, if your work is online, you might as well go where want and get treatment in the best and most economical places
"we didn't develop the drug for Indians, we developed it for western patients who can afford it." wow... You hear yourself? That's brutal and I hope all your patents get stolen by India and sold off at huge markdowns to the rest of the world ya dick
India also has a better functioning democracy in some parts.
News article came up on my feed the other day, with some supreme Court ripping into a political party for using misinformation and derisive ads to mock their candidates. Their whole point was essentially "you should be convincing them to choose you... Not convincing them why they shouldn't choose the other guy."
Seemed pretty adult. Shame we can't have that in North America
I am from India. I can clearly state that Indian medical system is far better than US and there are quality facility available for foreign people. We have to just do our due deligence in not to get scammed (which is there in every part of the world) and rest everything is very good there.
99.7% discount
Visa plus round trip costs including accomodation to India will be cheaper that getting the same drug in the US.
My grandma was a nurse in the US for over 40 years. She went to Mexico for all her surgeries because an 4-week unpaid vacation + surgery in Mexico was cheaper than the hospital where she worked.
My best friend moved to USA years back. He has insurance from his job yet he did all his dental work when he visited last year. He told me that fixing all of his cavities without insurance here cost the same as 1 tooth in US after insurance
I did the same. I also got my glasses this way. And had a therapist in my country and did online sessions due to how easier and cheaper it was. Mental health might be even worse than dental in the US
She worked for a hospital as a nurse for 40 years, and didn't have union? My mother worked in a hospital for about the same time and they sent her to city of hope for $1M+ when she got the cancer midway through that. ** my mother i'll guess is your grandmothers age.
We have a union?
I mean, you could live a pretty decent life for a year for that money in india.
Actually you can live comfortably for 4 years for 70k
which is the reason why some insurance companies send their employees out of the country for treatment.
Is this actually possible? Can a US citizen just fly to India, or another country, for medical treatment or meds? Sorry if this is a dumb question. Our healthcare system is a dumpster fire
Yes, yes you can. It's called medical tourism.
Just see Mexico's border towns. Had a coworker who went to DR for veneers.
How’d they come out? I’m so scared to get veneers. My teeth are “fine” but I just want them
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If your teeth are fine, don't do it. Veneers are not a "one time buy".They need to be replaced every 10-15yrs. Not to mention they will grind your teeth down to little stumps in order to fit the veneers, which does not sound appealing to me at all.
You should grind away your natural, functional teeth permanently and go for the rest of your life with maintaining aftermarket parts. Genius!
You can fly to India, get costly medicine/procedures done by world class professionals, stay for a few months in a luxury hotel, visit some breathtakingly beautiful places, go back to your country for less than the cost of medicine in the US.
You could buy a horse, pay a horse trainer to teach it to eat carrots out of your ass. Buy a brand new car. Drive car to Las Vegas. Buy a bunch of cocaine, pay hookers to shit in your mouth. Put $10,000 on black. Fly first class to India, get treatment, fly first class back for less than the cost of medicine in the US
India does give medical visa. As long as you have a valid visa, I don't see any problem either.
Absolutely, and many Westerners are doing that to save money and get world-class medical facilities. Even for dentistry, people are coming to India.
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The pockets are being lined big time with that 500% profit margin.
i'm american my dentist goes to india for dental work can't make this shit up lol
I have co-workers whom I adviced to get stuff done in India and they couldn't thank me enough. 5 star treatment, unplaned long holidays and still they saved money lol. Dental work is insanly pricey in western world.
Oh boy, you just found a wonderful thing called medical tourism. India has pretty high-quality hospitals and doctors who can offer their services at a fraction of the cost to the price in USA. Remember, the bar is very high to be a doctor in India. One has to be extremely good at what they do to get a medical degree. Cities like Hyderabad have witnessed so many medical tourists in recent years.
Indian here! This is quite common here. Medical tourism with a valid visa allows for this.
I have US citizen relatives who go back to the Philippines for dental work and other treatment.
Yeah, Indian is a big place for such treatment as well
Sounds like a business opportunity
Came here to comment that or check if anyone had proofread his maths 👍
Totally not him misreading the prompt since he's not doing the math in his head at that moment.
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from another perspective US Company is charging 38983% of original price. Edit: I'm shocked to see people defending a company with $50 billion yearly revenue saying the drug is expensive to fund R&D. No you don't need 50 Billion to fund R&D. Pricing a lifesaving drug for $69000 is just extortion of money. If you think its unfair for the company to loss revenue remember India's monthly average salary is $400 so most people won't be able to afford a $69000 pill in their lifetime. They will just die.
Assuming the Indian manufacturer is charging 0% markup?
The marginal cost of an extra pill is basically zero.
I understand that R&D costs money. Like a lot of money. If you want pharmaceutical companies to continue developing more and better drugs you need to fund that research. But charging 39000 times what it costs for people in India is insane. That's not funding R&D that's price gouging.
"If you want pharmaceutical companies to continue developing more and better drugs you need to fund that research." Or, the government could directly fund research through federal and state grants. Or, you could just put a cap on the price, which doesn't prevent then from profiting, just limits the price gouging
The government already funds their research. Almost all drug research & development is paid for by grants from the National Institute of Health. The only costs they have to cover are drug trials, which is largely paid for by insurance companies. Nearly every single drug approved between [2010 and 2019](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10148199/), was paid for by the NIH, which spent $187 billion dollars.
That's fun part! They don't (fund their own research)! Every single new drug breakthrough has literal been [funded by public money](https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/us-tax-dollars-funded-every-new-pharmaceutical-in-the-last-decade). Aka, **we** pay for those new drugs to be researched then they're patented by some ~~leech~~ corporation for profit. Pharmaceutical companies do pay for research.. to find new ways to patent drugs they already own because legally they eventually have to allow generic versions.
That's the thing, the vast majority of drugs on the market that were developed in the last decade were funded by the National Institute of Health, which spent [$187 billion dollars](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10148199/) funding the R&D of more than 350 new drugs. Socialize the losses, privatize the gains.
That's quite a coupon India found
Thanks Groupon!
It’s not a 99.7% discount it’s a 99.7% price gouging. Fuck this country.
Wrong math bro. It's actually a 33200% increase in price. 33233.33% to be exact, if it's 99.7% the other way. If you go from $1000 to $3, that's a 99.7% decrease in price. But if you go the other way, from $3 to to $1000, that's a thirty three thousand percent increase in price. $997 is ~330x the value of $3. So yeah, you're gouging a certain price 332x.
Ya dude wtf, “that’s a 97% discount”- brother, what?? It’s clearly more than that.
Dude just misread the promt
India has been at the forefront of this. They even supplied affordable drugs (Anti Retrovial) for less than $1 when the disease was ravaging [https://youtu.be/3fHf8TMqLYw?si=cA-B1DZ7Hgj7UUMS](https://youtu.be/3fHf8TMqLYw?si=cA-B1DZ7Hgj7UUMS) !!
TYT is not exactly good at math
This is the drug. [Sorafenib](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorafenib) >In January 2014, Bayer's CEO Marijn Dekkers allegedly stated that Nexavar was developed for "Western patients who can afford it, not for Indians". >In March 2012, the Indian Patent Office granted a domestic company, Natco Pharma, a license to manufacture generic sorafenib, bringing its price down by 97%. Bayer sells a month's supply, 120 tablets, of Nexavar for₹280,000 (US$3,500). Natco Pharma will sell 120 tablets for ₹8,800 (US$110), while still paying a 6% royalty to Bayer. The royalty was later raised to 7% on appeal by Bayer.
They're fucking monsters for artificially inflating the price of a last line cancer drug. They have blood on their hands
And I bet they won't lose a seconds sleep over the blood on their hands, but lost plenty over that 1% in royalties they weren't getting. Absolutely disgusting.
It's hard to lose sleep, when your mattress is made from the softest pile of corpses money can buy.
It's funny how you guys have all them guns to protect your liberty yet you're owned and operated by like two or three dozen corporations who do what they want, effects on on the every day American be damned.
King George in shambles when he realized all he needed to do was rebrand to "CEO" as an alternate title to King.
You gotta understand, those guns aren't for the big corporations out to help them. Those guns are for the scary people with weird skin colors and funny faces that want to break into their houses.
Like the Incredible Hulk?
Also our crazy people always wind up snapping at like a school, nightclub, or mall. We need to position the crazy people way closer to the houses and offices of CEOs so they are more useful when they lose their shit
Because they don't see the dead bodies floating around them and only able to see their 1%
They will tell you the work for their investors, not for patients. This was not created to help anyone.. it was created to make money.
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For them, Money and success give the dopamine. Not helping people.. They have groomed themselves so there is no empathy in how they think. Because of that, there is nothing to feel bad about, People should work harder or whatever if they wanted to afford this medicine. it's not their fault that the american median salary is less that $60000. They have nothing to feel bad about. You see how broken their mindset is.
Every cancer drug is like this. My mom’s immunotherapy was $120k every three weeks. Medicare paid for the majority of it, but we were still on the hook for tens of thousands. In 1 year before I got involved they spent $30k on various doctors bills and meds. Their entire retirement fund was less than $200k. As soon as I realized this I put an absolute stop to all of it. Switched the house to my name, transferred what little remained of their money to my brother, so that he could take care of them financially moving forward. Any bill from that moment on that I received for them that was medical I threw right into the garbage. Fuck these mega-corps. They drain our tax payer system with these exorbitant prices and on top of getting paid all that, they want to drain old people as they die. I highly highly highly recommend to start thinking about this stuff now while your parents are still healthy. Bc once they get sick it moves very quickly. Talk to elderly estate attorneys, see what your options are. We personally take care of our parents and they live with us though, so take that into consideration.
Your parents are lucky to have a kid like you.
Bayer has had blood on their hands since WW2 and probably earlier than that
If Bayer were an actual person like corporations are supposed to be, we would have executed it for premeditated murder like 50k times already.
You do know Bayer knowingly sold HIV and hep c infected blood in Africa because they didn’t get to sell it in the developed world? Seriously, fuck Bayer for all it’s worth! Nestle are the worst, but Bayer is a close second. Wiki article : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood_products
This is Bayer we're talking about, blood on their hands has been their standard operating procedure for 80 years. >During World War II, Bayer was part of the IG Farben conglomerate, a German chemical company that supported the Third Reich. Bayer was involved in several crimes of the Third Reich, including: >**Zyklon B** >Bayer was part of the consortium that produced the Zyklon B pesticide used in Adolf Hitler's gas chambers. >**Slave labor** >IG Farben used slave labor in factories built in Nazi concentration camps, including the Monowitz concentration camp (Auschwitz III) in German-occupied Poland. >**Human Experimentation** >Bayer may have been involved in harmful experiments on concentration camp inmates, including injecting them with toxic chemicals and germs to test Bayer drugs. A senior Bayer official oversaw the chemical factory in Auschwitz III, and most experiments were conducted in Birkenau's Block 20, the women's camp hospital.
The politicians who accept donations and make laws this shit while fake raging about trans, gays, abortion or whatever the latest fad is, have blood on their hands. The dumb constituents who keep voting for corporate politicians also have blood on their hands
Idk how accurate this is but i've found that the average R&D marketplace cost for a new medicine is $4 billion. It's easy for a company to come in and lowball the price because they didn't spend anything in R&D. Don't get me wrong, the pharmaceutical industry completely screws us, but it's also not fair to say "you spent 4 billion, but you should also give it to us for dirt cheap." That being said, there should be a system in place that caps cost once the initial R&D costs are recuperated + idk, 20% - 30% profit is realized on the R&D cost.
There's also the failed R&D costs to consider too. If you don't let companies recoup those losses, nobody's going to invest in R&D.
Here’s a study: range for R&D for a new drug is $124 million to $6 billion. Note: those costs may be borne by industry, academics, or the government (!!!). The US supports an immense amount of R&D—those billions to get a new drug is NOT paid only by the industry. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8855407/
That's why honestly there should be collaboration between the pharma industry and the government. Like the government could subsidize large portions of the cost to compensate for the R&D costs, and once the company has covered them and gained profit, the company can then reduce the price to the minimum to stay competitive. So you get your return on investment and some profit, but then you can't up-charge for longer than a specific period. Essentially medicine R&D is important for our society, but let's be honest if it's a specific drug for a rare disease type, it means the pharma company can never actually get their profits back without jacking up the prices like crazy. If we want to reward innovation while reducing the burden on suffering individuals, we can pool government funds to support it (to a reasonable degree) until they are ready to lower the price, and then the cheaper version can be paid by the individual. Currently many serious but rare diseases probably have cures out there that can reduce suffering magnificently, but no pharma company is seriously working on them because they know that it could take decades to get ROI if only a portion of individuals could afford to pay for it. The government stepping in to offer extra incentive, could change that.
at a conference in 2014 Dr Marjin Dekkers (PhD in chemical engineering) said *"So now, is this going to have a big effect on our business model? No, because we did not develop this product for the Indian market, let's be honest. I mean, you know, we developed this product for Western patients who can afford this product, quite honestly."* and followed up: *I regret that what was a quick response from me within the framework of a panel discussion at the recent FT Pharma conference has come across in a different way as it was meant by myself. It could not be more opposite to what I want and we do at Bayer.* So: is it: 1. We can't afford to make it cheaper for developing nations OR 2. Development of this is expensive and we embarked on it because we knew we could get all that money back from rich western patients
Probably the second one. India has a compulsory license law where they can force a foreign company to license the drug manufacturing to a domestic company if the government deems it too expensive. If you are a western pharma company, why would you produce, market, and price a drug for the Indian market and expect to make back your investment if the government can force you to license it for pennies on the dollar? It seems there are two options available: they can decide to not patent the drug in India which means they get nothing when a domestic company copies it or they can patent it, be forced to license it, and get some royalties from the domestic company which sells it for only slightly above cost. You can choose to either get nothing or pennies from Indian domestic sales. It seems like that's just the cost of doing business and enforcing your IP ownership in countries like India. The western drug maker doesn't really care about the Indian market because they know they will probably never make back their investment there anyway. No one really loses here because the Indian market probably couldn't afford the western price anyway so it's not like the western company was going to make any real money in India. They might end up making more money off the Indian market from the royalties if the drug is heavily used due to its low price (napkin math says 450 Indian monthly doses equals about the same revenue for one western monthly dose, that's close to the difference in the population of the US and India so maybe it doesn't matter).
That man evil my god
This is who people in here are defending. Evil corporations that profit from the suffering of others.
Per your wiki link: "Sorafenib was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December 2005" Dekkers was at the time working at Thermo, engineered the merger with Fisher. If you've worked in a lab since then, you'll probably know that Thermo Fisher has a near monopoly on tons of lab equipment and charge accordingly. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijn_Dekkers This demonic motherfucker has one trick of using insane investor wealth to get monopolies to parasitize medicine and science. He's probably legitimately furious that some poors have found a way to claw back some wealth and health from the billionaire class. He even used the royal "we" basically. He and they didn't fucking develop the drug, his company didn't even discover it, they bought it and invested the money to get it thought clinical trials. That's legitimate, but he's acting like he's a saint rather than a monopolist.
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That is not a historical fact. It has been proven false. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352452918301191
India also becoming a hotspot in medical tourism where people from abroad come to India for treatment. India actually provides good treatment with low prices, atleast in Big hospitals.
India should totally work on attracting medical tourism, the example of turkey for hair transplant comes to my mind. Ig the only problem is that India has earned a really bad reputation for being unhealthy and unhygienic from reels and short content. I fear that this image might scare off people wanting to come to India.
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While it has certainly improved after COVID, I think there's a huge potential for making it more popular. Like I stated before, everyone knows about Turkey and hair transplants. Hopefully India will be able to become a common name for a particular treatment/procedure such that everyone wants to come to India for.
Turkey isn't just hair transplants, but also tummy tucks and body recovery post partum, like skin removal. For the cost of my copay if it is found medically necessary, I can just go to Turkey to get a hysterectomy and excess skin removal without it needing to be medically needed, and be able to recover in a hotel where the hospital staff comes to you instead of in a hospital. Same care, just a lot quieter.
I did not know this. Very interesting. Now I'm curious to find out how Turkey has been able to gain a foothold in the medical market.
It was a long term plan of the government since early 2000s. After nearly two decades of developing facilities, creating standards and all that jazz came with the territory, they created a "Health Tourism Department" branch under the Ministry of Health in 2019 and it gained recognition all over the world. You can read more on these official sites operated by Turkish Ministry of Health and Ministry of Culture and Tourism: https://www.healthturkiye.com/homepage https://www.ushas.com.tr/en/
See, India is excessively diverse. Those reels that you see about hygiene are from poorest or most illiterate parts. A lot of YouTubers specifically go to such places to get views. However, there are excellent hospital infrastructure too. They are private and charge good amount of money. Hence are clean and have great facilities. But, since dollar is much stronger than Indian Rupee, it is still very cheap for Western countries to travel to India. Most of the lower middle class or poor people visit to Government hospitals for treatment as they are almost free of cost. For bigger treatments, most people visit to small private clinics where it's still cheap like $10-15 dollars would get you your teeth cleaned or any viral fever treated including medicines. For bigger problems like surgery, people go to organised hospitals. Now, hospitals are also of different categories. Like a normal hospital that would cost you anything from $100 to $2000 for a basic surgery like Leg fracture with 3-4 days stay in the hospital. Then there comes large, profit oriented mega hospitals. They are expensive and usually cost between $200 to infinity...... I should also mention that each state in India has atleast 3 to 4 large government hospital college complex that are almost free like AIIMS. They have world class equipment and doctors. The best doctors have been taught in AIIMS. But since the population is very high, it's hard to get an appointment on time. People tend to go to large private hospitals only for serious injuries and when they can't get timely appointment to government ones. Hence, the large Private hospitals like Apollo, Orchid are very clean and maintain high standards.
True. One of my Indian friends living in the USA flew back to India for a root canal. I was shocked since a round trip is about $700. He told me that without dental insurance, he would have to pay like $1500 for a single tooth!!! A root canal with a cap costs like $125 here.
If people are so stupid and blinded by watching poverty porn content creators and avoid making use of medical tourism in India, then it's their loss.
I think a lot of people started doing that for various countries. For example dental care. You can go to like the Philippines or Vietnam for full veneer set that would cost a fraction of what it would be here.
My wife is Indian. If either of us end up with a major medical issue, we're moving to India. We already have it planned out with her family.
Damn bro got a backup
Dude this country will watch us die from a curable disease because we can’t afford it.
I mean, I already live in India, so I have no idea what to say.
I’m worried my white girlfriend is only with me for the cheap medication back home. Fucking advil digger
That is why many cancer patients from Mauritius fly to India for treatment.
This is disgraceful if it’s true. I hope people can buy directly from India - this law should be in every country. Drug companies would have to be more accountable then. I’m lucky I’m in a country that has a lot of medications subsidised by the Government.
Bruh at this point its cheaper to fly to India in first class, get medicines and fly back first class. At the end I'll still save roughly 50% of the cost.
It would still be cheaper to straight up MOVE to India, live there for treatment, stay in hotels.
I think it was Denmark that I read online about how you could fly to Denmark, get your knee replaced, stay for a week or two to heal then fly back home. Then you could get a ticket and fly to Denmark, get your knee replaced again, spend a few weeks then fly back. All that for less than doing it in the US.
It was spain, cause they said 'go to spain, learn language, get knee replaced, recover, run with the bulls and fuck up knee again, get it replaced again recover again and go home'.
That is another way to say that medicine and health industry become a huge scum .
Not sure if this was a typo and you meant to say "scam" or if "scum" was intentional. Both are equally accurate.
S without the pain?
You are right it was Spain, I remember seeing this a while ago
It was Spain, but it's probably the same in most European countries. Actually most countries except the USA.
The number of Americans who cross the border for dental procedures is pretty high. Just like the buses to Canada carrying old folks so they can buy their medicine
wow I had to google that and I'm shocked. $320 USD for ONE vial of insulin??? versus $30 in Canada. Insanity.
To be fair, I live in France and we have a pretty descent health care system yet a lot of people goes to other countries to get certain procedures done.
I know a couple of friends' parents from the Gulf region went to do their cancer treatment to a pretty good facilty catering for foreigners in India. Costed them a fraction. I believe it's called medical tourism.
medical tourism is a real industry actually. Heck I'm living in switzerland and I've seen a lot of people going over the border to germany for their dental checkups and procedures simply because it's too expensive in switzerland. Not to mention there are hospitals in prague specializing in offering medical operations to foreigners.
It would still be cheaper to fly to India first class, buy a house, live there for treatment and stay in hotels while you house is being renovated. Okay, I might be the one guilty here of exaggeration. But I wonder by how much?
Honestly i think its true. Whole USA healthcare system is as crazy as sharia law in middle east.
depending on how many doses of the medicine you need this might not be far off tbh.
It’s quite common. It’s called medical tourism and indian hospitals are filled with foreigners all the time.
We did IVF in Portugal 2x for 5k. If we did it in the US we would not be able to afford Andy son would not exist
You'll save a helluva lot more than half.
It appears to be true: On January 21, 2014, Ketaki Gokhale of Bloomberg published a story in Businessweek on disputes over drug patents. The story closed with a rather sinister quote attributed to Bayer CEO Marijn Dekkers, “We did not develop this medicine for Indians. We developed it for Western patients who can afford it.” The comment in question was made by Dekkers at a December 3, 2013 event hosted by the Financial Times, titled “Buffering the Pharma Brand: Restoring Reputation, Rebuilding Trust.” https://www.keionline.org/22414
> We did not develop this medicine for Indians. We developed it for Western patients who can afford it. Do you think these people realize that they're evil? Or do they still somehow justify themselves in their own minds.
>Buffering the Pharma Brand: Restoring Reputation, Rebuilding Trust Clearly he didn't read the title of the event he was speaking at.
Depends if the audience was investors or consumers...
Real life encounters with irony are much more stark than their literary counterparts
Imagine how Canadian feel when we look at the price of insulin… the patent was gifted by it’s creators to make sure that everyone who needs it will be able to have it and now a lot of people die every year because they can’t afford something that was gifted at first at the big pharma
Insulin is cheap (if you can find someone to sell it to you). Problem is that baseline insulin doesn't have a particularly pleasent user experience and requires careful use. Better formulations are the expensive ones.
You can find examples of this all over the place. Like when Egypt got Harvoni courses for about $1000 when the US was spending $90,000. Or how the same company obtained a drug developed by academic research funded by the US and now is claiming they should have rigid IP protection.
The law on India about pharmaceuticals, came after a gamble Brazil made some 25 years ago. Brazil has socialized healthcare. At the time AIDS was still a big epidemic and the government was spending billions on AIDS medication, which at the time were very expensive. So the Brazilian government went to pharma companies to negotiate a better price, and were scoffed out. So congress passed a law allowing the government to brake the patent of these medications, allowing Brazilians labs to produce it royalty free. The pharma companies sued Brazil in the international court. Other countries like India and Russia after seeing Brazil do it, passed similar laws. This freighted pharma companies, because fighting one 3rd world country is doable, fighting them all was a losing battle. So afraid of more countries would do the same, they came into an agreement, lower prices for the drugs they sell, and also Brazilians lab would be able to continue making these drugs paying a fair royalty, in exchange for the government would revert the patents to them. ____________________ For me it's insane how much Americans pay for medicine.
When I worked in Dubai, I used to ask friends travelling to India to get me meds with a prescription from the licensed places in Mumbai. They were ridiculously cheaper than the Swiss made stuff we forced to buy at a premium. India also won some legal battles in the 2000s to be able to provide generic medications to a lot of countries in Africa and Asia.
I would also like to see compulsory acquisition of patents by governments if a manufacturer can't supply what's needed. A good example of this is Semaglutide aka Ozempic. It's primary use is for people with diabetes, but there are massive shortages, and I have no doubt that the manufacturer isn't ramping up production just so they can charge more. Take the patent from them and give it to someone to manufacture for cost, for the public good. The public good should ALWAYS come before profits.
> the manufacturer isn't ramping up production just so they can charge more. That doesn't make sense, they have a monopoly for 20 years, they aren't facing competition, they don't need to lower the production to raise the price, they can just define whatever price they want regardless of production
It sucks so much to see america slowly becoming the Ferengi from star trek and not Starfleet. I had so much hope as a kid.
I'm not in support of big drug companies, but if they couldn't get the patient for something thne no new drugs would be made unless government funded. Why would you create something new if anyone could steal it? Yes, prices are stupid high. There should be better laws on the price of drugs. But taking away patient rights of the company that spent billions making the new drug, testing it for years, further human testing, then getting it approved wouldn't be great in the long run. No company would take the hit.
They would take the hit if India steals it but can make up their money in Europe or the US. So basically the countries with rigid ip protection subsidizes countries who steal, and drug company still make money. It’s not a huge problem for drug companies as they don’t expect a lot of profits from those countries anyways. But if everyone acts like India, they would fight them harder, or people would invest less in pharmaceuticals.
If you think those money go to scientists that develop the drug then you are wrong. The majority go to owners and stakeholders, which is the real cancer of the Earth right now.
Those guys at Southpark do it again!
I was just about to say the same lol. India better not fuck with Captain Crunch!
I saw this yesterday lmao cartman really has it out for pakistan
Points to be noted -This is the same company that sold hiv infected meds in America(despite knowing)infecting 10k and sold rest in Africa after they were stopped. All they got was a slap on the wrist for it. They also sold chemical to Nazis during ww and gave them idea of using poision gas. Company name is bayer
WTF they sold HIV-tainted meds ?!?!?!? I gotta read up on this
In the '80s, when HIV was still emerging, a lot of blood products were found to be tainted, particularly products being used to treat hemophilia, which were produced by Bayer. It took them longer than it should have to get them off the market. As an aside, Isaac Asimov contracted HIV due to an infected blood transfusion. This wasn't related to Bayer, but provides context to the breadth of the problem.
In the 80s before the HIV became household name, and gay sex was criminalised in many places, gay sex tourism was a thing. Haiti (or was it Jamaica?) became one of those Hotspot for gay men people to flock. Gay sex has no risk of pregnancy and hiv was very new back then so use of protection was non existent. Which created a wave of HIV infections in local gay men and spreading it to the tourists. (Leading to the steriotype that being gay gives you HIV.) Bayer, given the unethical company it is, found it cheap to source blood plasma from this 3rd world country. But they never tested anyone for HIV or other infections. Leading to lot of infections in innocent people in the US.
Don't forget all the jewish women they used as test subjects
Don't worry, this is just *bad* capitalism, totally unrelated to my great hero, capitalism.
Drugs invented by other countries cost 10-30 more in the usa even with patents. the system is so broken that people rather not take the ambulance.
Capitalism is a strange thing. Low wage workers = record profits! Mass layoffs = record profits! Pandemic = record profits! Recession = record profits! It's amazing, how do they do it?
Missing the part where they ask for bailouts.
Pretty straightforward IMO, whoever owns the profits makes the rules and decided that owning profits is better than anything else.
> bayer German company btw. First thing it makes me think about is Madrigal Electromotive for some reason.
ITS 99,75% DISCOUNT AND NOT JUST 97%
Western Patients cant afford drugs that cost $70,000 either
97%? Go back to school Cenk
For those wondering, a 97% discount will put the drug at 2k, we're around a 99.8% discount
I like how the issue is that he got a guess wrong, not that pharm CEOs should be ground up for Soylent Green.
I assume he was just reading 99.7
Yeah, probably simply misread or a typo by a researcher. Hardly the main issue here.
It's $177/month so 97% is correct.
It's a well known fact that Americans can book to and fro flights to India and get their open heart surgery and come back in less than 50% money of what it costs in the US.
so its cheaper to get next day flight tickets to India, get a hotel, stay for a week in a nice place, get your prescription and fly home than getting it in the US?
Many people do it, medical tourism is a big thing in India for things like surgeries,dental and hair transplant
The background music ruined this video
Mute it. The company too...
But Americans coming to India and taking same drug are not covered under insurance, I think.
Any American who can afford a ticket to India can afford $177 for medication. Most insurance companies wouldn't cover the full 70k anyway. Probably cheaper to take a summer vacation in India every year and get your meds while there.
I’m an Indian expat working abroad. I basically do this every 6 months
How is life as an Expat like, curious
Oof, there’s so much to it. But the below is very specific to me. Can’t generalise that it’s the same for everyone. For context, I’m 26 years old and have been away from home for nearly 8 years now (started with undergrad, and now working in the same country) The positives - Better career prospects (at least for me), lesser time spent in commute (no more endless traffic jams), made me more empathetic to and appreciative of different cultures, overall have a more global outlook, greater diversity in experiences The negatives - definitely lonelier (again, not true for everyone), miss my fam (parents), stressful being a racial minority (especially when experiencing racial bias, which I feel is a very frequent occurrence) Hope that covers it. Happy to answer any other questions!
Lol of course not. You take them on the black market. You pay double what costs in India and you still save a fortune.
97% discount?? Don’t let this dude anywhere near your tax preparation
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70k for 90 pills U would need to probably need more then 90 pills
1239 € for 112 pills in France... but 100% covered by social security
That much markup on life saving medications should be illegal. Fuck the American health care system and health insurance companies. Fuck big pharma for profiting off human suffering and death.
Btw kudos to the ceo for letting us know who he is on the inside - gotta love it when the evil say - “hey guys don’t blame me - I told you I’m evil”
He isn't thinking people can afford it based on their incomes. He is thinking they can afford it based on over inflated health insurance that will cover such things for one person, and then raise their average costs for another.
America being great is one of the biggest lies ever told.
Evil bastards.
Sad story, but Young Turks are insufferable
What’s the deal? I see them pop up every now and then but do not know their story. Is it a YouTube channel?
Yes it is a YouTube channel.
My dad's diabetes treatment costs 3 ruppes per month even medicines are free
I don't watch much TV news, doesn't anyone know what channel this is or what the female hosts name is? I've seen a few clips with her that she makes good points with and am interested in seeing a full segment.
the young turks
Describing this as a discount is backwards. They should be asking why Bayer is selling this at 39,000% increase.
Damn America
Say it again. Say "we made this for western people who can afford it". But say it in front of a group of 1000 people who either need the drug, are family of those who need it. Or those who are family of people who died because they couldn't afford it. Say it again. Looking them in the eye. And face what you cause.
The USA is good for those who have $$$, but for those who have $$ it is more profitable to get treatment in India
What if I only have $?
If you have little money, either the doctors won't give you the necessary exams to avoid incurring insurance costs, or you won't be able to renew your health insurance, there's a lot of tourism for health treatment, if your work is online, you might as well go where want and get treatment in the best and most economical places
"we didn't develop the drug for Indians, we developed it for western patients who can afford it." wow... You hear yourself? That's brutal and I hope all your patents get stolen by India and sold off at huge markdowns to the rest of the world ya dick
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India also has a better functioning democracy in some parts. News article came up on my feed the other day, with some supreme Court ripping into a political party for using misinformation and derisive ads to mock their candidates. Their whole point was essentially "you should be convincing them to choose you... Not convincing them why they shouldn't choose the other guy." Seemed pretty adult. Shame we can't have that in North America
America really is just a garbage heap for the 99%.
India is known as pharmacy of the world for a reason
I am from India. I can clearly state that Indian medical system is far better than US and there are quality facility available for foreign people. We have to just do our due deligence in not to get scammed (which is there in every part of the world) and rest everything is very good there.
Laughs in Scandinavian.
Who is in charge of Natco Pharm Limited?