The real winners in Trump’s tax cuts
Speaking of Republicans and pharmaceutical corporations and filthy practices…
The real winners of Trump's tax cuts:
Pfizer: $2.8B
Johnson & Johnson: $2.5B
Merck: $1.2B
Abbott Labs: $473MMeanwhile, Pfizer, J&J, and Merck all *raised* prescription drug prices last year. So much for trickle-down benefits…https://t.co/7I0rUBxq8H
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) April 9, 2019
Opens Axios article:
Four pharmaceutical companies — Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Merck and Abbott Laboratories — collectively kept $7 billion in tax savings in 2018 due to Republicans’ 2017 corporate tax overhaul, according to a new Oxfam report.
The bottom line: Oxfam’s results mirror our reporting, which shows pharmaceutical companies in particular have benefited from bringing back billions of dollars in overseas profits that have sat untaxed. However, this report says the tax savings have not led to other social goods, like more research investment in new drugs or lower drug prices.
Of course not. That’s not what money is for. Money is for buying bigger and bigger houses, cars, yachts, private jets.
For some reason, people seem to think the reason drug companies charge so much is for R&D, but only a tiny amount of their profit is spent on R&D. Their biggest budget item, apparently, is advertising directly to the consumer, so the patient will bug the doctor to put them on a drug that may not even be what they need.
@#1:
That’s true, Iknklast. But a patent attorney I consulted on another matter not so long ago told me in passing that the reason that drugs cost so much is because each one has to be patented in every country in the world. And that I imagine means that bribery of hordes of Shonkistani and other officials has to be built into the cost, realities being what they are.
Omar, there is also the need to bribe the FDA to make sure they don’t approve a generic version of a best selling drug. My asthma inhaler has been open to generic for about a decade now, but the FDA has never approved a delivery system for a generic, so it remains a several hundred dollar medicine, and I can’t survive without it. Why do I suspect delivery systems aren’t the problem, the profits of the company are the problem?
If that were true, then at least the money would be circulating and doing a bit of good. But those sorts of toys are not sufficient to dent the sort of wealth that can fund a private space programme.
No, money is for keeping score.
Following the tangent about drug companies and patents…
Reminded me of “Against Intellectual Monopoly” [http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm]
Particularly, Chapter 9: The Pharmaceutical Industry [http://www.dklevine.com/papers/imbookfinal09.pdf], which has a few case studies of a pharmaceutical industry thriving with no or very weak patents.
Ironically, the institution of private property is the greatest and most pervasive form of economic regulation there is. Not that I am against it.
But it is not likely that too many ‘economic rationalists’ would be inclined to agree with me on that, either.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/10/neoliberalism-freedom-control-privatisation-state#comments
I once knew an American who was in many ways extremely liberal, but who had HIV and had seen many, many friends die for want of the cocktail that had only recently (when I knew them) been developed; every time discussion came to pharmaceuticals and health care, their stance was uniformly opposed to any sort of socialized medicine or single-payer program, out of a personal fear that innovation would halt and they (and more of their friends) would die. As though Canada and Europe have never cured any diseases.
It was disappointing.
Seth, that’s the mantra so many of us have been fed – private enterprise and profit drives innovation. Never mind that a lot of drugs that the drug companies sell are researched at least in part by government officials, and funded a lot by government funding. Never mind that giving a scientist a challenge to cure a disease (or about any other challenge, if it is what they are interested in) is a sure way to get that scientist to work 12+ hour days for years on end until they solve the problem. Never mind that every country with socialized medicine and government support for science is doing good science. Never mind that the profit motive actually hurts science in general, because if there is no money to be made they are less likely to fund the science (which is why conservation is so hard to get funded while genetic research projects to find out who your ancestors are get funding thrown at them). No, we hear the same song sung from the cradle, and we become blind to those facts that do not support that song. We don’t notice that the words don’t rhyme and the rhythm is crap and that the whole thing is so discordant it makes our ears hurt; we keep on singing.
Guess why we are facing a crisis in antibiotic-resistant bugs?
At least in part because antibiotic research is not profitable.
Ben Goldacre’s 2012 book, Bad Pharma, digs deeply into the corrupt underbelly of the pharmaceutical industry, revealing all the tricks of the trade. Honestly, raising prices of their drugs is small fry compared to a lot of what Goldacre reveals, such as falsifying trial results in order to get drugs they knew were harmful – and often fatal – onto the market. If memory serves, every company in the list above gets a mention in the book, and none in a complementary way.
AoS, I was once on a drug that nearly cost me my life, but the message was “That’s not a known side effect”. Several lawsuits and a handful of incomplete studies suggested it might be worth looking into, but instead, the company sent an enormous check to the AMA to call off their doctors who were set to testify. My doctor said “I’d like to, but I can’t. The AMA won’t let me.”
Was the drug responsible? How will I ever know? All research was halted, all discussion was hushed, and nothing ever happened. Meanwhile, they have continued to reap big from that drug, which the best studies suggest doesn’t work any better than a placebo, but with more side effects even if you accept only the ones that are “known side effects”.