Thursday, March 6, 2008

54,199% More Effective Than Brand B

A 54 THOUSAND PERCENT MARKUP?

Those marvelous folks at taf.org have a 2 page PDF press release from back in 2006 from the Hawaii State AG's Office. It's under 'Hawaii Sues Drug Manufacturers'.

"As an example of how the scheme has cost the State and Medicare consumers, Hawaii AG Mark Bennett noted that in one class action complaint in Massachusetts, Baxter was alleged to have an AWP for its sodium chloride of $928.51. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) found that the actual AWP for Baxter's sodium chloride was $1.71. The difference was $926.80 and the percentage spread was 54,199%."

AWP is Average Wholesale Price, which, along with another whole Funk and Wagnall's worth of alphabet soup Marketing terminology, are routinely massaged in the routine and ongoing, fraudulent massaging of Medicare and Medicaid.

And who do you think paid for that? And how many times?

I wonder if any of that $928.51 sodium chloride was handed out to physicians as "free samples"?

Ahh, ... Here's the NYT with the reason, Those pills must have wrought a 54,199% markup in their consumer's Quality of Life.

I wonder if there would be a similar percentile improvement in their consumer's Quality of Life if those consumers were told that the newer, safer atypical antipyschotic poisons they're being fed had an FDA reported track record of turning other consumers into corpses and killers?

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