What follows is a generic business plan that I’ve laid out for the purposes of demonstrating the goals of a typical pharmaceutical company as I see them.

First, a great quote…

“The market functions wonderfully when we want to sell more cereals, cosmetics, cars, computers, or any other consumer product. Unfortunately, it does not work in health care, where the goal should hardly be selling more heart bypass operations. Instead, the goal should be to prevent disease and illness. But the money is in the treatment – not prevention – so the market and good care are at odds.” – Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele

Pharmaceutical Company Business Plan

• Design products to treat long term symptoms of a condition rather than cure a condition outright. This will transfer far more money from user’s pockets to company’s pockets.
• Design products to be paid for by insurance plans and government agencies. Users will come to depend on their use of the products especially when they do not feel the pinch of paying for them. Once this cycle is established, large amounts of money will transfer regularly from government and insurance agency coffers to company pockets. Use all available lobbying prowess to establish laws and regulations promoting this cycle.
• Identify product side effects and engineer conditions to be solved by those effects. If product is a hammer, users must be made to believe they have many unseated nails.
• Design products with patent extension in mind. Example: Design and patent new product, BaknoPain. After original patent runs it’s course, patent and release “new” product, BaknoPain E.R. extending patent cycle.
• Doctors who relieve symptoms by means other than through our products must be viewed by the public as inadequate. This should be achieved through normal F.D.A. methods using our influence inside the organization.
• Develop and maintain U.S. lawmaker interest in support for our products. Remember, the strongest lobbying group in Washington belongs to the pharmaceutical industry.

Other Thoughts

As much as it may appear so above, I don’t blame the drug companies so much for the medical situation in this country. If I owned a business, I would likely follow many of the same guides outlined above. The drugs are manufactured to make money, not to be given away. Such is the law of the free market. For me, most of the blame goes to the lack of checks and balances inherent in our medical system. It is interesting right now that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have healthcare plans that are supposed to cover a large percentage of the population. If you think that drug prices are high now, wait until plans like these take effect. (see item two in the above plan)

A large benefit of televised ads (of which I’m not in favor) is that users are now more aware than ever of the side effects posed by these drugs. Forcing unwanted effects to be included in the ads shows the better side of lawmakers. The major negative is that, when visiting the doctor’s office, users now provide diagnoses for their own conditions while their only learned experience comes from watching the television ads themselves. Of course it’s not quite so simple but this type of marketing is vicious.

Finally…

We’ve all heard the refrain, ‘the cure is more dangerous than the illness’. Many of the dangers with pharmaceuticals lie with side effects that have not been discussed between users and their doctors. Manufacturers make every effort to minimize the down side of their products while maximizing their upside. Can you blame them? This is a very fuzzy area and one of the few areas where I believe regulations are necessary. Remember to always ask your doctor.

Further reading along these lines can be found here: What are the Presidential Candidates Talking About? A Brief Dictionary of Health Policy Terms

Also check out the book, The Truth About the Drug Companies written by Marcia Angell, M.D. former chief editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Elected Officials Support Israel But Rarely Say Why

There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding when it comes to the relationship between the U.S. and Israel, particularly on my part. For years now, I’ve been hearing campaigning U.S. politicians telling me of their support. Far fewer are the number of instances of their being up front as to why. The general line goes something like this, ‘As your commander, I will strongly support Israel as the only Democratic regime in Middle East.’ at which point the topic of the conversation usually changes.

The Jews Control Everything

This view seems to be very prevalent. Although my thoughts when I hear this type of comment are first of disgust and second of Archie Bunker, I can’t get around my own belief that AIPAC is the primary reason for George Bush’s unwillingness to speak with Middle Eastern leaders. (and for much else of the administration’s stance) Certainly, more questions need to be posed of the President. You might ask, for example, “How do our relations with Israel influence your decision not to speak with Syrian and Iranian leaders?” Or, “How do our relations with Israel affect the price of gas here in the United States?”

In Perspective?

Back in February of this year, the President signed a bill granting Israel $2.42 billion for FY 2009, most of it for military purposes. The pro Israel lobby is asking for an increase to $2.55 billion. These numbers, while very large, are hardly staggering with the cost of the Iraq war floating around. I and others would say that at least a portion of the war’s cost should be allotted to the defense of Israel. To back up this statement, I ask simply, “Were we not providing support to Israel, would we be involved in this war?” If the answer is in any way less than “Absolutely”, then a corresponding portion of the price should be attributed to the support of Israel.

I decided to include a link to an article entitled, “Why America Must Support Israel” from back in 2002. The first few paragraphs make a good case FOR further support. Also interesting are, Timeline Israel and The Peace FAQ.

Alright Hillary, I’ve listened to your reference to the killing of Bobby Kennedy a number of times now. I can find no reason to mention the event whatever unless, of course, you are making allusion to the fact that Hubert Humphrey was able to sew up the nomination that year. If this is your logic then please, spare us the gibberish and get out.

Note: Had I not later seen your ‘I’m right, your wrong, but I still apologize’ type apology, I’d never have written this.

The debate is as to whether an Obama/Clinton ticket would be a good one. There are certainly points to be made on both sides. Prior to January of 2009, this ticket would likely be a winner.

Senator Clinton has been very strong with certain voting blocks, women and low income whites being examples. In my opinion,however, Senator Clinton pushed any values that she may have had to the side while endlessly maintaining a position in the Democratic primary well beyond when it had become clear she’d lost any chance to win. Can we forgive her for that? I can. But I’d never consider voting for her.

Senator Obama, on the other hand has been very strong with his overall message of unity in government. Mrs, Clinton portrays this message as a grossly unachievable ‘Love Your Fellow Partisan’ type vision that will not and can not survive in Washington.

It follows that the main reasons Senator Clinton would be added to the ticket would be to unify the Democratic Party and to pickup votes. Ok, certainly I’d want to pickup votes, as many as possible. I’d also like to unite the Democrats. But, what happens when these people actually take office? Many would say that the two are really on the same page.

Yes, when it comes to the issues.
No, when it comes to a vision for a working American Government.

My hope is that Obama will pick Senator Jim Webb, as a running mate. Mr. Webb has a great deal of experience with the military having served as Secretary of the Navy and various Senate Committees including Foreign Relations, Armed Services, Veterans’ Affairs, and the Joint Economic Committee. Aside from all of that, he comes across as being charismatic and quite articulate.

Note:
Can you picture the soap opera in the White House with Barrack and Michele Obama, along with Bill and Hillary Clinton? Not pretty…

While I was getting a bite to eat, I saw breaking story on MSNBC stating that both campaigns deny any talks of an Obama/Clinton ticket.

One of my major concerns with the United States is the dealing or, better stated, lack of dealing with the flight of our manufacturing base, the most obvious price of which is the loss of well paying jobs. While this does get some occasional attention from the media, unless you are watching Lou Dobbs, it usually does not take precedence over the 2008 election cycle, the President’s latest exhibition in incompetence, or the undying fiasco in Iraq. Keep in mind that while our economy is losing, many others, particularly those of Asian states, are gaining. Rapidly. Don’t get me wrong, I think that it is wonderful that China is building its economy. Just not at the expense of the citizens of the United States! Worse, I feel that it simply does not need to be this way. I am not a lawyer and I can’t claim to understand why our trade policy is set as it is but it seems to me utterly masochistic to provide tax breaks, large tax breaks, to corporations to spur the movement of factories overseas. Incentives that ship jobs overseas in the form of extremely low wages and virtually unregulated facilities already abound! This activity is growing, again rapidly, and can be painful to think about.

Another cost, less obvious to some, is simply the loss in global manufacturing power to the United States. Without the awesome capability to manufacture, the United States would likely not have been anywhere near as successful in the second world war. To be sure, much had to do with the strength of our leadership and a national feeling of pride, but don’t be fooled, if the plants had been overseas, well, I don’t need to go any further…

All of this ties into the enormous trade deficit and the laws that support that deficit. One major problem that I have with the U.S. government is that lawmakers do not always appear to be placing our interests above those of foreign nations. Certainly not above corporations that, in turn, debase U.S. interests. Why is it that America has among the lowest import duties in the world?

Hey, did you know that Thomas Jefferson repealed all internal taxes and ran the government on tariffs?