Gilead has announced that a Hepatitis C virus has been introduced to the world and is now infecting 3 million Americans (and perhaps 125 million sufferers worldwide).
Gilead wants $300 billion from the US for a (99%) cure (which costs them $200 a patient to manufacture, half a billion for the whole US — but, hey, vics will pay what it’s worth to them, right?
Pay now and get cured — or stretch the payoff over Gilead’s 20 year patent and pay almost the same while the virus infects ever more victims. Gilead can extract $10 billion a year anyway — insurance will cover that much annually for sickest patients.
And who can guess how many hundreds of billions will go down the drain stateside dealing with the ravages of the virus: liver cirrhosis and cancer — not to mention lost work years?
California’s 600,000 sufferers would need $60 billion to neutralize Gilead’s goose-that-never-stops-laying-golden-eggs Hep C virus. World-wide elimination of Hep C at US prices (Gilead only charges about $1,000 a cure in poor countries — all the traffic will bear I guess) would come to 12.5 trillion (with a “t”) dollars (if they could get away with it).
Gilead: pay now and don’t die — or pay almost as much (maybe more) later while almost as many (maybe more) die anyway.
CRYORCURE VIRUS
Gilead has formulated a (95%) cure for all forms of Hepatitis, A, B, C, D, E — at $75,000 a treatment US. At US prices, 400 million worldwide sufferers would need to pony up $22.5 trillion (with a “t”) or whatever the market will bear …
ADDENDUM
Single payer Medicare does nothing to prevent the medical extortion above. As long as there is no countervailing force, the proliferation of the financialization of medicine — and of every other American enterprise — will continue unabated. Countervailing force? High labor union density. 6% union density in the private economy equates to 20/10 blood pressure: it starves every other healthy process.
Gilead’s geese-that-never-stop-laying-golden-eggs viruses
GOTTACURE VIRUS
Gilead has announced that a Hepatitis C virus has been introduced to the world and is now infecting 3 million Americans (and perhaps 125 million sufferers worldwide).
Gilead wants $300 billion from the US for a (99%) cure (which costs them $200 a patient to manufacture, half a billion for the whole US — but, hey, vics will pay what it’s worth to them, right?
Pay now and get cured — or stretch the payoff over Gilead’s 20 year patent and pay almost the same while the virus infects ever more victims. Gilead can extract $10 billion a year anyway — insurance will cover that much annually for sickest patients.
“The number of new [US] infections nearly tripled in five years, to about 2,400 in 2015. The virus is spread by sharing needles to inject drugs, and the increase coincided with a surge in heroin use.”
http://abc7chicago.com/health/hepatitis-c-infections-nearly-triple-in-5-years-from-heroin-epidemic/1981856/
Pay up instead of dragging it out and save 400,000 US lives before the patent dies.
“Data from death certificates shows a total of 19,659 deaths in 2014, up from 11,051 in 2003. Because death certificates often under report hepatitis C, Ward said, that number could also be much higher.”
http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/04/health/hepatitis-c-deaths-all-time-high/
And who can guess how many hundreds of billions will go down the drain stateside dealing with the ravages of the virus: liver cirrhosis and cancer — not to mention lost work years?
California’s 600,000 sufferers would need $60 billion to neutralize Gilead’s goose-that-never-stops-laying-golden-eggs Hep C virus. World-wide elimination of Hep C at US prices (Gilead only charges about $1,000 a cure in poor countries — all the traffic will bear I guess) would come to 12.5 trillion (with a “t”) dollars (if they could get away with it).
Gilead: pay now and don’t die — or pay almost as much (maybe more) later while almost as many (maybe more) die anyway.
CRYORCURE VIRUS
Gilead has formulated a (95%) cure for all forms of Hepatitis, A, B, C, D, E — at $75,000 a treatment US. At US prices, 400 million worldwide sufferers would need to pony up $22.5 trillion (with a “t”) or whatever the market will bear …
… fast or slow, high or low: the world will pay.
ADDENDUM
Single payer Medicare does nothing to prevent the medical extortion above. As long as there is no countervailing force, the proliferation of the financialization of medicine — and of every other American enterprise — will continue unabated. Countervailing force? High labor union density. 6% union density in the private economy equates to 20/10 blood pressure: it starves every other healthy process.
Dennis:
Getting close to what I want to hear.