Posts Tagged → stroke
Move Over Big Tabacco ……. you Ain’t got Shit on these Bastard ……
no sex in this post …… apologies ……
Looking at this advert and others like it you might think that drug companies, doctors and struggling day in and day out to help you. You might think that all drugs are being developed to stringent standards and thateveryone tries their absolute best to bring the safest, bestest, cheapest drug to the market …… think again…..
Since the 80′s drug companies and their lobbyists have been trying to cut costs, change the way we prescribe and give us incentives (including conferences/golf trips/workshops, freebies (I have 6 lipitor mouse pads, one usb memmory stick from Glaxo-smithkline and about 120 pens which I keep in a drawer …. in another year it’ll beat my GI Joe collection in another month)
1980 marks the year when the first pro-pharm act was passed. The Bayh-Dole Act allowed drug companies to scavenge data from any research conducted in a university in the united states. At the time most research was funded by tax dollars. This meant that a fair amount of the research and development costs was cut by simply allowing the government to fund drug development instead of having to rely on their own capital. In other words most drugs from then on (at least in part) were developed for free.
Next came the orphan drug act in 1983 ; giving drug companies incentives for slow sales in drugs which were used to treat diseases affecting less that 200,000 people in the US. In other words they were now getting paid for making a drug that wasn’t selling too well.
Since then drug companies have been trying to streamline the FDA approval process beginning in 1992 with the prescription drug fees act which allowed drug companies to pay the FDA for faster approval. In other words they legalized paying for streamlining the vetting process designed to keep dangerous drugs out. From then till the end of his term Bill Clinton had tried to pass price control proposals that would limit the amount of money the companies were allowed to charge individuals and dismantle the current pricing structure which is pegged to GDP within a given country. His failure is in effect why you had to pay 30 kd last week for that medication for the clap.
1995 saw the big-pharm lobbying for (and getting) the right to start manufacturing drugs at sites without the need for FDA approval or inspection of the lots. It also saw the introduction of free range genetic patents regardless of the use and allowed the companies to use pre-clinical (rather than full blown clinical trails on a significant number of humans) data (not trails …. sporadic data as in I know of 10 people x who were given drug X and experienced some relief of some of his symptoms …. literally). This has allowed a whole gaggle of drugs to be released and sold to the general public including Celebrex (a type of anti-inflammatory …. kind of like an aspirin 2.0) which was designed for people in their 80′s with arthritis, only to find that it could increase your risk of stroke or heart attack.
Then in 1997 drug companies get handed the FDA Modernization Act which basically allowed drug companies to hire other companies to review asses and submit their drugs for FDA approval …… in other words do their dirty work for them and legally indemnify them. It also allowed them to publish direct to consumer advertising through TV, Radio and printed press. This was considered unethical a couple of years back because of obvious conflicts of interest.
They also made it impossible for medicare providers to negotiate wholesale prices for drugs through the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 ….. this established company policies which extend to some companies in Kuwait as well and is relevant when we talk about how drugs are sold to the ministry of health through local peddlers.
They also spent over 80 million in 2005 successfully overturning proposition 79 which would have cut off a whole gaggle (= million …. close to billions) of incentives they were getting through the government.
The only reason why I haven’t taken a jab at any of the local companies in the region is because they look like angels compared to these people. Since 1980 they’ve been paid for doing nothing through incentives, been paid if they can prove that their drug is a failure and have invested in intense lobbying that has made the FDA approval process no more complicated than getting a scoring a license for your 18 year old kids here in Kuwait. They’ve also given themselves the right to copyright your blueprints and any use they feel like. without asking your permission.
So the next time you walk into a drug store with a headache go for the generic Gulphar stuff ’cause all that Tylenol is going to do is get them to bribe another unsafe drug into the market or by me a new pen ……..
P.S. I’m sorry if I bored you ……. the Micheal Moore movie is far more entertaining …….
Import/Export
We’re bored of the summer, Avenues (or afeneuyz as many of us call it) has lost it’s luster and everywhere else is unbearable thanks our fine fifty degree weather and while many of us end up going on vacation and enjoying it, a fair share demand medical reports for conditions which they’ve had for the past 20 years.
These include your lumps and bumps as well as dependence on dialysis (for which they have refused transplants in the past), an old stroke and possibly even diabetes (yes, diabetes ….. the only disease entity which every person in Kuwait has become an expert in thanks its endemic nature).You’d be forgiven for thinking that these reports were written so that a patient may gain insight into his/her condition in an effort to turn an new leaf and start a new, healthier lifestyle; or so that a written record can be kept and referred back to during an emergency.But sadly most of these reports are requested and demanded specifically for a 4 month vacation in Germany, London and even Thailand.
The reports, while requiring a great deal of time to be compiled, written and reviewed by both the attending doctor and his/her supervisor, end up being the subject of scrutiny as 60 year olds scream at you for not specifically stating that you can’t treat their condition in Kuwait and that it is an urgent one which requires treatment abroad (yes, I am talking about diabetes, hypertension and that lump of fat that happens to be in the wrong place for the past 20 years) and despite the best efforts of medical staff and clerks in administration; the idea that the vindictive, mean, abusive (and lets not forget incompetent and negligent) doctor has it on for them ends up being brought up and shoved down your throat in the middle of the corridor (it’s very hard to kick an old man in the knees while he’s on a wheelchair with other people watching)
The problem arises because these charming, vivacious (and dare I say it …. polite) senior citizens have yet to face the crystal maze* that is the ministry of health, you see in ordered to seek medical care abroad under the MoH (ministry of health) you have to set up a coordinated series of “was6as”, go through a number of offices (usually occupied by people who dwell in the mundane and never bother showing up for more than an hour a day), collect more signatures than a girl scout going in a sponsored hike and even then ,you’d still have to wait for an okay from a council or group that is set up.
Another issue I have with people traveling abroad for conditions requiring long term management which many of our doctors are more than capable of is the fact that these cases put a strain on a ministry that is just built wrong (putting it mildly) and this delays many of the cases which require (= deserve to a limited extent) treatment abroad such as certain rare or borderline heart conditions in which management may be dicey and certain other things like weird tumors, rare muscular disorders and funny transplants(liver, kidney+ pancreas, intestine). In most cases these conditions are either relatively rare or may require management techniques that are only available in a handful of centers and although most of these cases are not very urgent and do not require emergency surgery, they do get worse with time and waiting two or three months for your papers to go through is simply not an option.
Ironically, many of the countries we export our woes to have developed a trend known as “Health Care Tourism” which sounds very much like fusion cooking (i.e. a fad that ends up with mixed results to say the least). Places like the States and the U.K. ship patients to places like Thailand, Cuba,and India regularly (infact it’s estimated that 55,000 U.S. Patients have been admitted into one hospital in 2006 in Thailand ) but they do it because of the spiraling costs of getting good healthcare in their own native countries rather than the quality of the treatment they receive over there.
And before anybody asks for a ban on treatment abroad you should bear in mind that it would be far too expensive for most Kuwaitis (even the well off ones) to afford long term therapy for things like myloblastic leukemia, a coronary bypass or a small bowel transplant without cutting some corners. It would be simply unethical for a country with this much spent on healthcare NOT to provide people with the treatment they need.
It would also be juvenile to think that bringing in the worlds best blah blah surgeon, or the worlds best poo poo expert or even House M.D. would make thing any better. To work on the complex and the rare requires repeated exposure to it and adequate compensation for the sacrifices you make in the process. Something the MoH lacks to say the least. You see it would be the equivalent of getting a carpenter to teach your cook to build a desk and then getting your cook to build one for you. After your desk is built the cook will never need his newly acquired carpentry skills and therefore they’ll soon fade never to be put to use again.
So where does the solution lie?
‘Fuck should I know; I’m not smart/educated/experienced enough to know the perfect mothers day gift let alone find a solution to this creature from the abyss …..
*I was going to use gauntlet of doom but decided against it
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