{"id":2243,"date":"2018-07-30T23:06:59","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T06:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=2243"},"modified":"2018-07-30T23:14:37","modified_gmt":"2018-07-31T06:14:37","slug":"big-pharma-sold-me-contaminated-drugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=2243","title":{"rendered":"Big Pharma sold me contaminated drugs"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Erik Dolson<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

This morning I read a press release about a recall of the blood pressure medication <\/span>valsartan because of an impurity that\u2019s a\u00a0probable carcinogen. This impurity may have been the result of manufacturing changes at Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical – a Chinese company. I was prescribed valsartan six months ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I went to my pharmacy this afternoon and learned that in fact, most of the valsartan they sell came from one of the companies implicated in the recall:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Medicine<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Company<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Valsartan<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Major Pharmaceuticals<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Valsartan<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Solco Healthcare<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Valsartan<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Valsartan\/Hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Solco Healthcare<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Valsartan\/Hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

This shines a bright light on\u00a0an outrageous theft from Americans by pharmaceutical companies, some not even based in the United States including\u00a0<\/span>at least one involved in the recall (Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd<\/a><\/span><\/span>)<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2003 Congress passed the Medicare Modernization Act<\/span><\/a>. It was shepherded through by <\/span>Congressman\u00a0Billy Tauzin<\/span><\/a>, R\u2013La., who then retired to take a $2 million a year job as president of\u00a0Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(PhRMA), the main industry\u00a0lobbying<\/span>\u00a0group. The cover story at the time was that the $400 billion cost to Medicare would save millions of American seniors\u00a0thousands of dollars on their prescriptions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The actual goal was to shield the pharmaceutical industry from market forces and consumer outrage as they jacked up the prices of drugs 100%, 400%, 800%. With the bill now\u00a0paid by Medicare, patients\u00a0would not see the price increases. Under the new law, Medicare was prohibited from negotiating prices with drug companies and U.S. consumers were prohibited from importing their drugs from Canada or Mexico (or anywhere else). Google was fined $500 million in 2009 just for allowing Canadian companies to advertise to U.S. customers.<\/span><\/p>\n

What a bonanza for the industry! Since 2003, drug prices have soared and are a primary reason the U.S. pays the highest prices in the world for mediocre health care. The initial bill was sold as a $400 billion savings for medicare recipients, but has resulted in\u00a0more than a $500 billion windfall to the industry. The industry has\u00a0the largest lobbying budget in the U.S. used to buy off congressmen who are still in office, congressmen who will soon retire and be looking for work for themselves, wives or husbands, and children, and spends far more money advertising drugs to gullible patients who can’t understand what’s being sold\u00a0than they do researching breakthrough medicines.<\/span><\/p>\n

What does this have to do with the cancer causing impurities in the valsartan I\u2019ve been taking for six months? A\u00a0main argument from the pharmaceutical industry against importation is that it threatens patient safety, that imported drugs aren\u2019t adequately tested for quality and purity. I would dispute that drugs in Canada, France, or Brittain are more dangerous than those sold here\u00a0by an industry that is out of control.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was the Chinese company that manufactured the contaminated valsartan sent to the companies above for repackaging that discovered and reported the problem. Apparently, the safety of Americans \u201cguaranteed\u201d by the FDA and the outrageous prices we pay for\u00a0medicine is a sham. Companies that sell\u00a0pharmaceuticals can import cheap and dangerous drugs,\u00a0but not\u00a0those patients who need the real thing.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Erik Dolson<\/em><\/p>\n

This morning I read a press release about a recall of the blood pressure medication valsartan because of an impurity that\u2019s a\u00a0probable carcinogen. This impurity may have been the result of manufacturing changes at Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceutical – a Chinese company. I was prescribed valsartan six months ago.<\/p>\n

So I went to my pharmacy this afternoon and learned that in fact, most of the valsartan they sell came from one of the companies implicated in the recall:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[440,489,491,492,493,487],"class_list":["post-2243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-health-care","tag-major-pharmaceuticals","tag-medicare","tag-solco-healthcare","tag-teva-pharmaceuticals-industries-ltd","tag-valsartan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3mcOb-Ab","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2243"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2247,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243\/revisions\/2247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}