Cancer drugs
Of the 15 cancer drugs approved in Canada over the past decade, three-quarters cost more than $20,000 for a normal course of treatment.
Some provinces, as well as private drug plans, are refusing to cover the increasingly expensive cost, leaving patients to either not get treatment that may extend life and reduce side effects or find a way of covering the cost themselves.
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Roche, which sells Avastin and several other cancer drugs, said in a statement that it considers many factors when pricing drugs including “our investment in research and development, (and) the benefits of … significantly improved survival and enhanced quality of life over currently available therapies.”
How much would you be willing to spend to extend your life by 6 months? That’s how much drug companies want from you – as much as they can get. It’s basic supply and demand.
It reminds me of an exercise we held in my intro to econ class that the prof used to demonstrate how prices are set in the supply and demand model. Essentially, the more that the highest bidders are willing to pay for a product, the more that the product will be sold for (assuming constant supply).
April 1st, 2006 at 11:54 am 1
President Mbeki of South Africa refuses to believe that HIV leads to AIDs. How can a virus cause a syndrome? Instead, he believes that poverty causes AIDs, and has advised his people to stop taking anti-retrovirals because they are poisonous. The poor people cannot afford anti-retrovirals, whereas the rich people in his cabinet can. He is the only leader in the world to believe this.
Question for you.. why do you think he takes this approach? Who is to blame?