Rule #1: Never believe bf when he walks out the door, leaves in your car, and has all his WWII gear with him and says he’ll only be gone about 2 hours. Yeah. So much for my plans. THANKS!!!! See, this wouldn’t be an issue because the original plans were for me to take my car, him to borrow the dad’s car, and mum to go to work. Mum didn’t go to work, we went shopping. Since she took me to the dr’s this morning, I went ahead and let him take my car (since it was only supposed to be for 2 hours, riiiiiiiiiiiiight). Anyway, get home from shopping, my car isn’t here, call the bf and ask him if he got lost. “Oh no, just had a long lunch, did some voice work, uniform demo.” “When will you be home?” “Oh, I’ll leave around 6PM.” “Yeah, thanks.” My plan, was to head over to my former gym and play around on the toys, bounce a bit, see how many different muscles I can make hurt in the morning. But, no. Yeah, could take the parent’s car, but that would be unfair, and we’re waiting for dinner. Next year, 2 cars.
In other news, I have an irritable bowel – from working seasonal full-time at a store during christmas. So what does my dr give to me? Zoloft. Of course, he suggested I try altering my diet a bit, along with meditation, and trying fibercon (or something like that) – after he saw my reaction to his questioning if I had heard of it.
Which spawned the badgering of my mum in regards to pharmaceutical costs. Interesting fact, Americans who go up to Canada to get their meds…may be paying less, because they have fixed prices, but they also have limited supplies because of it. So, Canadians are really being cheated by this phenomenon. Interesting fact, the reason why pharmaceutical costs are so high, is because the FDA requires about 10 different clinicals (when only 4 are absolutely necessary) for each drug and the companies don’t receive any subsidies from the hospitals for these trials (they pay full price). On top of that, there are separate clinical trials for both Europe and Japan, neither of which pays for the trials through their price fixing. So, result: new medicines never go to where the prices are fixed until the clinical costs are recouped (means they stay in the US), add the costs for the clinicals of every other drug that never makes it on to the market, in to that and you have the set price for “in-house” drugs.
My recommendation, ditch the over-kill on clinicals, or begin providing back-up for drug research. Require hospitals, where the clinicals are run, to provide breaks for the point of research (where they don’t). And a few other things I haven’t taken the time to ponder….
Oh yeah, interesting fact: most pharmaceutical companies have programs to provide their drugs to those that need them at below market prices. The problem? They require financial proof of inability to pay market price (e.g. tax returns). Of course, I had never heard of companies doing that, but apparently it’s publicized through dr’s networks (makes me wonder). Now, I can see where there’d be issues for the “tweeners”, who make more than the cut-off and less than the “i can really afford to subsidize this myself”ers, especially if there’s a barrage of prescriptions that they need to be on.
Definitely puts a new spin on American healthcare, for me. I’ve seen socialist medicine in the works, and that’s definitely not the way we want to go (unless we use that as a basis, with all additional costs covered through self-pay), but yeah, we do need an over-haul (like that wasn’t already known). If we decide to go with a salary cap on prescription drugs, then we really need to find a means to support the research and the development, or force Europe and Japan to foot their part of the bill for the clinicals (though, I think this should be done, regardless).
Freakchylde's 
pharmaceutical companies have put the spin on that for years acting as if they are so put out for costs, the actuall cost of making most drugs compaired to the cost to the consumer is often many times marked up…..they try and make out like they lose out on the clinical costs but the truth is, in the long run there profiting greatly off of the drugs they manufacture…
its also like insurance companies that make billon dollar profit margins yet “cannot afford” rising costs so limit how much they pay, reguardless of going rate standards.
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had that come from any of the spin dr’s my mum works with, i’d think the same thing. but my mum couldn’t spin herself out of a paper bag. she’s horrendous at sly lying and she’s the one responsible (at her company) for finalizing the clinicals for each drug they produce (she doesn’t present them). but, she does have a point. some drug companies may over-inflate things to the point where they recoup costs instantaneously (mainly to get the profits out of the drug before the knock-offs hit the shelves). however, my inner voice believes my mum (not because she’s my mum, but because i know her intimately enough, that i had to rephrase half my questions so she understood what i was asking). her estimate on running a clinical for one of her most recent creations ran $1.4 million dollars for acceptance on the American market. They haven’t even begun to run the clinicals for Europe and Japan. When they run the American clinicals, they have to use every possible strain of bacteria/virus/disease that the drug is targeting. They can’t take one strain, test that in animals, in adults, then in children (3 of the clinicals my mum says are necessary). Every strain that is in existence, they have to procure (which costs money) and test that with the drug. Once the lab part is done (the fourth necessary clinical), then they begin the animal testing (which costs money), with a certain number of rats infected with each strain. Then they move to the human testing, where they have to pay for the hospital time (not the person in the study) and any costs incurred as a result of illness and recouperation – same certain number of people infected with the different strains of illness (with each race having its own separate clinical to be gauged against the other groups).
Now, take this overseas. Europe has its own standards, which usually involves just as many clinicals as the US, but neither will accept clinicals already done for the other. So that doubles the cost right there. Then you get Japan. They require a couple of different clinicals be done. But, as for my mum’s company goes, they’ve located a villiage in India with enough of a Japanese population, and are willing to undergo the tests, that they can perform these clinicals at a cheaper cost to the European and American ones. Whether or not the European countries and Japan will provide hospital reimbursement, I don’t know. I do know, in regards to my mum’s company, they they don’t get hospital reimbursement. They pay full price for every person participating in that clinical, as well as their insurance for it, should any long-term effect be an issue. The fact that hospital costs are just as outrageous, out-of-pocket (which is what the pharmaceutical companies pay), contributes to a good chunk of that clinical cost.
If a company is based in Europe, the European gov’t helps to cover their costs, if they’re American, the American company covers the European costs, as well as the American costs because the gov’t doesn’t provide every company and drug research team a grant for it. Which, is where our costs for these drugs come from. The companies themselves have to recoup, as a result, they limit the number of below-cost drugs go to countries with fixed prices, if those drugs go there at all. This is one reason why you’ll see tons of commercials on TV for various drugs that are the wonderdrugs-dujour. And why so many Dr’s got a nice little benefit for prescribing, oh say, paxil – ritalin – the ADD drugs, more than something that might be more suitable.
Yes, it results in a problem. No, socialized medicine, while a nice dream, is not the answer. Should some drugs get price caps? Could work. Should the delay between the release of the generic drug and the release of the prime drug have been lengthened? No, generic drugs are the cheaper ones that work the same way. Does everyone use the generic drug? Who knows. I do, every time my pharmacy has them available. Does everyone utilize the resources they have at hand? Probably not. We live in a capitalistic economy where profit is the driving factor. The pharmaceutical companies are no different because greater profit = more r&d for other drugs, as well as recoup for drugs that didn’t make it out of the lab.
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