Pharmaceutical cancer fighting pills for the wealthy

A couple of months ago my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was lucky they found it early and was only considered to be in the very early, minor stages.

2 Weeks back she had the cancer removed, and has recovered quite well since.

As a result of being diagnosed with breast cancer, she has been told to take a drug called Letrozole for the next 5 years of her life.

The drug essentially works by stopping the flow of oestrogen that would usually feed the cancer (from what she told me)

Knowing the sleazy business schemes pharmacology can produce i thought i would ask her a few questions about the drug.

If you were to buy the drug, straight out of the chemist, it costs $179 for ONE months worth.

However, she is one of the very fortunate people on the planet to be in the top, most comprehensive health care (in Australia), so she receives considerably large discounts of all sorts.

She only pays $5.80 for one months worth of these tablets.

How do people, who have been diagnosed with cancer, treat themselves after such an operation.

There is no way, the average person can afford to be spending $179 a month on tablets, for the next 5 years.

Thats $10,800 for 5 years worth of drugs

In Australia, a minimum wage could be considered around $10,000 a year (thats what i use to earn on minimum wage when i started working)

So you would have to work for an entire year, just to save up enough money to buy 5 years worth of simple pills from a chemist.

The top tier of healthcare is still not cheap here, it's approximately $1200 per month, which is about $72,000 for 5 years of it, and the cost is still rising.

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On another note, a friend whom has a few ties to a pharmaceutical company was telling me the procedure they follow with out of date pills.

If a supermarket, or chemist, finds that their pharmaceutical products are out of date, even if it's something as simple as vitamins; the product is sent back to the company. The company then crushes and grinds up the 'expired' pills. They then test the ground up substance for the potency, and extract whatever is still good to use.

I don't know if this is the normal procedure, or just how accurate it is, but if this is the case, what harm is there in taking pills that are out of date, except for the potential risk of having them not work? I would imagine that the reason for the use by date is so people have to continue to buy the product again.

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It's such a tragedy to see how hard it is to stay healthy. Why is health so expensive, should that not be our first priority in life... to live?

Originally posted by BeforeTheHangmansNoose
$179 for ONE months worth

Dude, that is NOTHING. I used to take a medication for a chronic disease I have, and the caps cost $12 EACH. During a bad episode, I'd take 3 a day.

$36 a day.

$1080 a month.

I WISH it cost $179 a month.

Luckily, the patent ran out this year so I get them for $.50 a pop from Canada (manufactured in India).

What does THAT tell you about big pharma?

reply to post by AwakeinNM


Wow, what a f'n rip off.

I forgot to mention the potential side effects to but, regardless im sure there are many different drugs out there of exponentially expensive value.

How would you even afford $1000 a month on just pills.....

I was at a psychopharmacology training seminar yesterday and the guy who was delivering it (Prof Iain McGregor from the psychpharmacology laboratory at the University of Sydney) indicated that in the last 5 years, Big Pharma has forked out 8 BILLION (let that figure sink in) dollars in damages to the families of people who have been either killed by common drugs and not been told about it or severely damaged people. And his next comment was 8 BILLION is chicken feed compared to what they make a year. Medicalizing everyday life is big business...

Originally posted by BeforeTheHangmansNoose
reply to post by AwakeinNM

 

Wow, what a f'n rip off.

I forgot to mention the potential side effects to but, regardless im sure there are many different drugs out there of exponentially expensive value.

How would you even afford $1000 a month on just pills.....

Right before the generics came on the market, I was in a bad flareup and I HAD to fork over $1080 for 90 caps. I was unemployed and had no insurance, either - it was out-of-pocket.

To be honest man..I worked in a pharmacy once and there was this old woman that came in every month who was battling cancer. She was probably atleast in her 70's and she paid around 1100 a month for these medications.

She was the absolute sweetest person you could ever meet. Then after her you would have people come in and scream at you because their insurance wouldn't cover their *certain pills that you know people take but cant be mentioned on ATS* addiction. These people would even have a 20oz drink they just bought in their hand and have the audacity to ask you to pay for their $1.84 medication.