US doctors forced to ration as cancer drug shortages hit nationwide

[cesces]

US doctors forced to ration as cancer drug shortages hit nationwide - BBC NewsHttps://bbc.com/news/world-us-canad...

(1) To what extent is this affecting prostate cancer treatment drugs?

(2) To what extent is this limited to the USA vs an international phenomena?

(3) If just the USA, why? What is the causative mechanism?

[StePeteMN]

Carboplatin is used along with Cabazataxel for treatment of PC. I don't know about other countries. Has to do with new price controls of certain generic drugs. There are good articles in the national papers such as NYT & WSJ.

[cesces in reply to StePeteMN]

Even with the price controls USA prices are probably higher than in most other countries. Maybe all other countries.

I bet if you go get medical care in Canada or Germany you can get what you need.

[StePeteMN in reply to cesces]

"Even with the price controls USA prices are probably higher than in most other countries. Maybe all other countries."

Tell us more if you have more info. And are you talking about price to the patient? Or cost to the Healthcare provider?

[cesces in reply to StePeteMN]

Simple question. Complex answer.

Depends on the healthcare system.

USA is I think a small part of the world. 5%?

But pays over 50% of Pharma revenues.

Mostly because our political system allows pharma to directly bribe our lawmakers. Legally.

Europe is materialy larger than the USA. But pays way way less.

Nothing is free. And ultimately patients pay the entire cost, one way or another.

In the USA patients pay more directly. In the UK and Scandinavian countries the pay less directly.

But we all pay.

But USA patients not only pay for themselves, but also in part for EU patients as well.

[Justfor_]

Drop that stupid Maximum Tolerable Dosage and adopt the Minimum Effective one. Everybody will be happy, but the pharma industry that will see their turnover plummeting and docs that they must spend more time with each individual patient's case.

[cesces in reply to Justfor_]

I don't think that would affect pharma pricing power. They would just charge more for smaller doses.

Their pricing is unrelated to their costs.

The quickest way to fix it in the USA would be to add 4 more non-ideological justices to the Supreme Court.

[lowT163]

bad part is it’s the Chinese that are making them in the first place. You trust them?

[cesces in reply to lowT163]

Even the proprietary drugs have been outsourced to Chinese and Indians, as well as all the feed stocks.

[lowT163 in reply to cesces]

worries me. Pretty sure they killed millions of people without a thought. Mixing drugs wrong for someone you hate won’t be a stretch.

[cesces in reply to lowT163]

I am pretty sure it is just business.

They will cut corners wherever they can do so without getting caught.

Some will be used locally. Some in other countries.

They don't care.

[lowT163 in reply to cesces]

I think it’s very important to get production back here

[cesanon in reply to lowT163]

The only route to that I see to that outcome is to both

(A) pack the Federalist Society staffed "Corporations are People" Supreme Court, and

(B) replace about 40-50 Pro-Pharma Pro-Business (mostly Repub) congressmen who are on the Pharma / Business lobbyist dole.

Re-introducing market place competition back into US oligopolistic markets will reduce many other costs in addition to drug costs.

[dhccpa]

This is one of the most uplifting threads I've seen recently!

Can we talk about mass murder instead? Or was that the point? LOL

[cesces in reply to dhccpa]

Folks, please don't feed this off topic troll.

Thank you

[dhccpa in reply to cesces]

Amen