Natural Thyroid products price hike

[Catseyes235]

My daughter has just told me her Thyroid meds’ from Thailand I believe has just been increased in price by 200% . She is having to pay for expensive private prescriptions. Does anyone know any more about this. Luckily I’m okay on Levo.

[humanbean]

Because of a serious pig disease that is at epidemic levels in China the raw ingredients required for making NDT have become very much more expensive than they were.

Two pharma companies in Thailand have given up production of NDT in recent months. The only one still in production is Thyroid-S. The huge hike in the cost of raw ingredients is now inevitably reflected in the current cost of NDT.

sciencemag.org/news/2018/09...

cnbc.com/2019/04/10/killer-...

[Catseyes235 in reply to humanbean]

Thanks .. I wondered if this was the case. My daughter wanted me to change to NDT but I was concerned about animal welfare issues more than anything and was okay on Levo anyway. Pity we couldn’t produce it in this country from Organic/high welfare pigs!

[BadHare in reply to Catseyes235]

We can though it’s a supplement not a pharmaceutical. Look up Metavive.

I swapped from Nature Throid last year, & have been happy with this. It works out about the same price as NT, & possibly comparable to the new Thai price though more ethical.

[LAHs in reply to Catseyes235]

I too have a problem with the thought of killing pigs for their thyroids. I rationalize it by remembering that these poor creatures have already been slaughterd for food so our need for their thyroids is a secondary concern, a byproduct.

Perhaps in another universe the molecules of their thyroids continue to exist in us via their sacrifice. A bit like when you die and allow your eyes, heart, liver etc to live on in someone who needs it. I wish.

[Hillwoman in reply to LAHs]

I doubt very much that pigs are killed for their thyroids, as you put it. Domestic (farmed) livestock are reared for their meat. The thyroid gland is just one body part that is sold on as a by-product. Hides are sold for leather, bristles for brushes, bones for meal that goes into garden fertiliser, pet food, and so on.

[Catseyes235 in reply to Hillwoman]

I have an agri environment degree so no I don’t think pigs are killed for thyroid extract. However my concern is for welfare of the pigs while alive as probably intensively reared. They may also be given growth hormone and antibiotics etc intense livestock reading has huge repercussions ... as we are finding out.

If anyone saw the programme on tigers being reared in Thailand for their ’medicinal’ and other parts, with the Thai government almost complicit in their inability to stop the trade, they would have severe doubts as to the origins of NDT.

[Hillwoman in reply to Catseyes235]

Well, one doesn't need a degree in this to understand how agriculture works. I live in a rural area where the farming all around me is pastoral, and I come from a line of livestock farmers. And abhorrent as the Thai situation is, the manufacturers of NDT there are known to import their raw materials. Where those materials come from is another question.

Which country are you talking about though? In the UK and EU farm livestock are not currently reared in the way you indicate - feedlots, the use of hormones, and all the rest of it - because it isn't legal. There exist still some rearing practices I find troubling. In the US the picure appears quite different, and post the Brext transition period UK consumers are in for a shock (if they have their eyes open, which I admit is not a given) when we start importing meat from animals raised in inferior systems.

[Catseyes235 in reply to Hillwoman]

Quite. Which is why I would like to see NDT from UK (not really EU as not all countries are as strict as ours). And which is why when people want a blanket ban on animal production due to emissions I point out the difference between U.K. and US production - though fewer sheep more upland trees plus deer for commercial meat not just for rich folks to shoot would be good - and we can all eat less meat. Off to scrutinise Metavive as looked at website but events overtook.

[Catseyes235 in reply to LAHs]

Hello ..see my reply to Hillwoman! Cheers