Australian woman must pay $1500 a week to stay alive

Stories like this really make me angry. This 59 year old lady needs a drug that costs $1500 a week just to stay alive while the bosses and executives of these big pharmaceutical companies drive around in expensive cars, wearing expensive suits going home to their expensive home(s).

Why the hell is such a drug so expensive in the first place? I get there's R&D, and marketing, but $1500 for something that probably costs a few cents per thousand tablets to produce, what the hell is wrong with this world?

A TASMANIAN cancer sufferer will have to fork out $1500 a week for treatment to save her life. Dorothy Thurley, 59, has been fighting bowel cancer for eight years and has been told she has one last chance to live - a widely used drug not covered by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Read the rest here.

reply to post by DigitalSea


Well hopefully this gets more attention and the government add it to the PBS.

It's ridiculous the cost of some of these drugs.

with the added bonus of assisted suicide being illegal, and suicide being a rather unpleasant act, this poor lady seems frakked either way...

big pharma is evil, everyone knows that, but at the same time, they do save lives, or make some lives significantly better, i would sooner fork out $1500 to stay alive than not have that option at all. and at the end of the day, big pharma is running a business (rather well i should add) and its their choice to charge whatever they want for their product. maybe once china buys the other half of aus we'll be commies and then the state can take care of all those things, for free, when they feel like it...

reply to post by DigitalSea


It's a damn hustle. There's a 99.9% chance that there is a SUPER inexpensive herbal remedy for this. There are treatments for all illnesses in nature. Eff the system...

Look into Dichloroacetate. Drugs companies don't want anything to do with it because it can't be patented. They won't make any money off of it. So therefore, no one can use it unless they do it on their own.

reply to post by ktrip


That's the point though, isn't it? They're in the "business" of saving human lives...

reply to post by ktrip


You make 1500 a week or more? Damn, it must be nice.....

This is why the system needs to be turned around - all medical procedures deemed necessary by doctors have to be covered, except those explicitly defined not worth it by law.

Originally posted by pikappa
reply to post by ktrip

 

That's the point though, isn't it? They're in the "business" of saving human lives...

That's exactly right, and they will save your life... No matter the cost.

You can live, as long as you buy them a new Mercedes.

Originally posted by My.mind.is.mine
reply to post by DigitalSea

 

It's a damn hustle. There's a 99.9% chance that there is a SUPER inexpensive herbal remedy for this. There are treatments for all illnesses in nature. Eff the system...

Took the words right out of my mouth there.

Just goes to show that the priority for life in this messed up joke of a world we live in, is how rich you are. If you can afford it, you get to live. If not, well there's always slow painful death and the good chance of being charged as a criminal should you fail at suicide or attempt a current illegal alternative therapy.

pitiful, just pitiful

I guess the med is made out of moon rocks
and requires an Apollo Space Launch for
every batch made.

reply to post by My.mind.is.mine


Yeah we really need to be getting back to natural medicine and natural health in general. A lot of these medicines don't really work with the body to aid it in healing/helping itself, which should be the goal. But if a body can help itself....no need to be dependent or tied to whatever drug.

Never mind the fact that after getting "treated" by main stream medicine, you'll often feel like crap whether or not they were able to even fix your problem.

reply to post by DigitalSea


Well, if she took 2 to 3 weeks worth of that money and bought a pound of the plant that we can't talk about on ATS and use the Rick Simpsom method, she could get cured.

Instead of just staying alive.

reply to post by pikappa


they are out to make money not save lives. saveing people is just a side effect of makeing money off there drugs lol. think about it. you go to the doctor he gives you something for highblood pressure. then your back a month later with new symptoms caused by the blood pressure meds. so he gives you something else to cover those symptons and bam, now another new problem with new side effects the whole time just filling the pockets of Big Pharma. i used to work in a hopspital i seen this happen so many times its just insane.

once in the hands of pharma youre dead and broke.....system works.....

reply to post by DigitalSea


In Australia, they have government health care, so you do not get expensive medicine because the gov is about saving money, not the lives of everybody, and yes, they are the defacto 'death panel'. The government is worst than any insurance company.

In the USA, I get whatever I drug or treatment I need since I PAY FOR IT. Only thing that is not covered is experimental drugs but if I choose the experimental medicine, they will pay for the doctor's portion of oversight and admin.

On Drugstore.com, price is much lower, one injection vial per week is about $525
1 vial $575.99 - save 5% ($32.04)
3 vials $1,625.88 - save 11% ($198.20)
6 vials $3,210.02 - save 12% ($438.13)

Here is another article on this new drug:
The high cost discussed is the market price,

June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Eli Lilly & Co.’s tumor-fighter Erbitux doesn’t prolong lung cancer patients’ lives enough to justify its $80,000 cost, U.S. scientists said in commentary published today.

Erbitux added to other cancer drugs extends survival about 1.2 months more than chemotherapy alone, making the price too high for a “marginal benefit,” commentary in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute said. Erbitux, which Lilly markets with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., generated $1.3 billion last year as treatment approved for other malignancies.

The high price of some of the newest cancer medicines are coming under scrutiny as part of an effort by lawmakers and health officials to rein in overall medical costs. President Barack Obama has set aside $1.1 billion in the U.S. economic stimulus bill to study the comparative effectiveness of treatments for cancer and other diseases.

“We must avoid the temptation to tell a patient that a new drug is available if there is little evidence that it will work better than established drugs that could be offered at a miniscule fraction of the cost,” wrote the commentators, Tito Fojo with the National Cancer Institute and Christine Grady at the National Institutes of Health.

Lilly, of Indianapolis, and marketing partner Bristol- Myers, of New York, withdrew an application to extend the Erbitux’s use to lung tumors in February after the Food and Drug Administration questioned differences in American and European versions of the treatment.

$10,000 a Month

The authors projected that Erbitux costs $80,000 based on a typical course of treatment for lung tumors, 18 weeks. If all 550,000 U.S. patients who die of cancer each year took 12 months of Erbitux, the total cost would be $440 billion, 100 times the annual budget of the National Cancer Institute, the authors said.

8,000 iu blasts of Vitamin D over Big Pharma killing drugs anyday...

reply to post by DigitalSea

There is a cure for Cancer, the Canadian's found it and its a lot cheaper than 1500 dollars a day to stay alive.
Canadian Scientists Cure Cancer

Where's the 'Pro-Life' brigade on this? You would think the argument applies just as strongly after birth as this woman nears the end of her life just as much as it does for those before birth. What? Just because she's near 60 doesn't make her right to her life with dignity and quality any less valid. Those responsible for the high cost of medical care and life saving medications should be brought to bear.

reply to post by DigitalSea


Come to America....We have to pay $70,000 for a month and a half of hospitalization for my husband to stay alive....the price you must pay here with no insurance and something critical happens...freaking socialize health care already!!! Education too...

There are two conditions for a top nation...Health and Education. That is it. Period. Healthy, smart people will prevail. If we have to cut most other programs....and make it so that the money is in these systems, America can get back on track for the long run. The harder we make these services to obtain, the less healthy, and dumber people will be, thus falling to the bottom rungs of the world.