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[Terrell]

Dude, what? Pharmaceuticals is not a monopoly, there are countless companies in the game. What are you talking about?

Yeah, and they're all very wealthy and make it harder and harder for newer companies to emerge that aren't bought out by Phizer and the like for their drug patents. I never said there was a monopoly, just that there's a handful of major players making little room for anyone else. Like every other industry.

Yes, they compete against one another to get a leg up on the others, but the main point still stands: when the end game is to ensure your company makes more and more money and you're in the drug game, what do you think is going to happen? You're going to get shit like an anti-depressant with some serious side-effects marketed as a smoking cessation drug to drive prescriptions up under the guidance of the pharmaceutical companies. And that's probably the least offensive example of the things they do.

Capitalism without a moral compass is the root of all the nasty shit these companies do, plain and simple.

 

[Warm Machine]

I've had a former co-worker who believed in a big pharma conspiracy involving a cure for cancer. Which was insane as we both worked for a big pharma at the time. He was also an anti-vaxxer which pretty much tells you all you need to know about him.

If there was a cure Steve Jobs would have bought himself one. Could have peel'd off a few billion to make himself not die.

 

[MrToughPants]

Bayer deliberately selling contaminated blood with HIV/AIDS/HEP C when they could have sold clean blood. Why get rid of that blood when we can just sell it to poor countries?

 

[Clockwork5]

Big pharma has cured two of my close family members of cancer.

 

[Five]

If there was a cure Steve Jobs would have bought himself one. Could have peel'd off a few billion to make himself not die.

Yeah, that's a pretty good catch-all for conspiracy theories. Does it negatively affect some rich people? Then it's not true.

 

[FZZ]

Well I don't think Pharmacies are withholding medicine

But everything else they do is beyond fucked up

 

[Zeuanimals]

And that's some shameful shit. Right up there with 9-11 truther garbage or moon landing hoax theories.

Worst than that since if people actually believe that stuff and they have children... They and their children are screwed if they ever contract anything even remotely deadly and treatable and the laws around not taking your children to hospitals for such things are pretty murky. The scary thing about anti-vaxxing BS is that they don't understand that they're putting other people at risk as well and the more people try to educate a lot of these people, the more those people cower and say big pharma is trying to silence the "truth".

911 "truthinesses" just makes people not trust the government and/or oil companies which is already a popular idea. Not sure what not believing in the moon landing does to people's daily lives.

 

[Laevateinn]

Polio is a bad example because it wasn't created by big pharma. It was created by the University of Pittsburgh.

 

[Rug Monkey]

I like Ambrose Bierce's definition of 'Prescription'

Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient

 

[Five]

I like Ambrose Bierce's definition of 'Prescription'

Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient

Can't spell prescription without cript, right? And what is a cript but a misspelling of crypt? So prescriptions are sending you to the crypt. Flawless!

 

[StevePharma]

Pharmacist here so I get "conspiracy theories" thrown at me at a regular basis, doesn't really bother me anymore. Most of it is unfounded but there can be some shady stuff.

Like how Tecfidera(R) (dimethylfumarate) was re-introduced to the market for a new medical indication, price being about a factor 10 higher than the generic dimethylfumarate that was already being provided for people with multiple sclerosis and psoriasis. Even local government and health insurance companies concluded that it was a total bullshit move.

 

[A Fish Aficionado]

The worst that they do is the same as the worst that Apple, or Sony does; patents, backroom agreements, bribery.
basically, Capitalism.

 

[A Fish Aficionado]

If it works, it works.

See in the real world, if it works, it goes beyond lab research to Phase trials. Ultimately to human trials. Most drugs never even reach that phase.

 

[Deleted member 518153]

Capitalism without a moral compass is the root of all the nasty shit these companies do, plain and simple.

Pretty much this. I don't know if they're involved in any nasty conspiracies but we are living in a world where companies like Nestle try to eradicate the human right for water. I don't trust them and never will.

 

[inner-G]

See in the real world, if it works, it goes beyond lab research to Phase trials. Ultimately to human trials. Most drugs never even reach that phase.

If something works, it works regardless of what the FDA and drug companies say about it.

 

[Smellycat]

Pharmacist here so I get "conspiracy theories" thrown at me at a regular basis, doesn't really bother me anymore. Most of it is unfounded but there can be some shady stuff.

Like how Tecfidera(R) (dimethylfumarate) was re-introduced to the market for a new medical indication, price being about a factor 10 higher than the generic dimethylfumarate that was already being provided for people with multiple sclerosis and psoriasis. Even local government and health insurance companies concluded that it was a total bullshit move.

What Biogen did wasn't surprising at all to be honest. Fumaderm (a drug owned by Biogen) was introduced in 1994, and any patent on it was long gone. At the end of the day, pharmaceutical companies are businesses and they need to make money. It doesn't make sense for a company to perform costly clinical trials to achieve a new indication on a brand medication that is already available as a generic. They wouldn't get much in return to investment (at least in Europe).

Why would you give up the chance to market a new drug for a disease state for which treatments cost about $50,000 and above?

I don't fault Biogen for doing that. It makes sense from a financial perspective. But what I think is ridiculous and sneaky is the fact that Biogen was able to obtain data exclusivity for the medication, basically preventing generics from entering the market until 2023 (or maybe 2025, I can't remember), and it is all due to a technicality.

In order to qualify for data protection in Europe, a medication must be considered a new active substance (NAS). A NAS is an active ingredient that hasn't been previously approved by The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Obviously, dimethylfumarate isn't a new substance at all. But, Biogen was able to market it as one because Fumaderm was only approved in Germany and it was never approved by CHMP. Again, this makes sense from a financial perspective, but the reason for why it happened is just wrong lol

 

[Kin5290]

If something works, it works regardless of what the FDA and drug companies say about it.

Sorry to break it to you, but successful Phase 3 trials are much better at demonstrating the efficacy of a treatment than a single animal trial (which only demonstrates the effect of a treatment in the most theoretical of senses). Suffice it to say that if every potential treatment that showed promise in vitro or in animal models actually worked in humans, disease would be a thing of the past. But, surprisingly enough, lab mice are not humans.

 

[Dizzy]

I don't really believe in these conspiracies, but there are some ridiculous things going on with the drug prices because the pharmaceutical companies can get away with it.

I had an article but unfortunately it seems to be from a banned UK newspaper. Shame as it was actually spot on the money. As a bit of an insider I can see it all happening firsthand.

Teva is hands down the worst. They're drugs can have a 90% price increase other any other companies, coincidentally they just happen to be the largest producer of generic drugs in the world.

 

[Nabbis]

There's plenty of shady shit going on with pharma companies and medicine in general. Dismissing some nutters is fine, but this field does have corruption and moral issues.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1876413/

https://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_know_about_the_drugs_they_prescribe

 

[The Mule]

There's plenty of shady shit going on with pharma companies and medicine in general. Dismissing some nutters is fine, but this field does have corruption and moral issues.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1876413/

https://www.ted.com/talks/ben_goldacre_what_doctors_don_t_know_about_the_drugs_they_prescribe

I wonder how tech like Watson will change the game when it is prescribing drugs. At that point it becomes a game of influencing algorithms and data. I wonder which is more easily manipulated. Humans, or machines?

 

[A Fish Aficionado]

If something works, it works regardless of what the FDA and drug companies say about it.

You have to take in the placebo/nocebo effect, harm, side effects. Many drugs are pulled because of further investigation. Many natural sourced cures are dangerous.

I wonder how tech like Watson will change the game when it is prescribing drugs. At that point it becomes a game of influencing algorithms and data. I wonder which is more easily manipulated. Humans, or machines?

It will help with human error and misdiagnosis. Only last week, I found out my pharmacy gave me the wrong meds. Thankfully it was only roughly the same meds, lexapro/citalopram. I can only wonder on how much harm it would cause if it was someone else with a greater drug interactions.

 

[Team Filler]

If something works, it works regardless of what the FDA and drug companies say about it.

Sure, go ahead and take that "if it works, it works" cure and hope that your liver/kidney/heart doesn't become absolutely fucked.

 

[M3d10n]

I think past occurrences of malicious corporate behavior that went unchecked for decades like the tobacco industry collaborated to building this distrust.

Also, you bet your ass that big pharma lobbies HARD again cannabis legalization

If you could grow something in your yard that eases symptoms of all types of illnesses, they're cut out from money on all of that.

Their goal isn't to heal people. Their goal is to make money off of selling medicines.

The cotton industry has much more to lose with the legalization of cannabis. They are one of the main actors behind the ban on the first place.

You are correct in saying that big pharma's goal is to make money selling medicine. You are wrong in thinking it has enough control over the research and development process of new drugs to outright hide or bury me effective cures and vaccines. It just shows massive ignorance of how the whole thing works and how many people work on it.

The amount of people required to keep such conspiracy going on is massive. Many schemes have crumbled with far less people involved.

The CEOs would certainly love to be able of doing something like this and I'm certain some do try to in isolated cases, but flawlessly colluding with several governments and research institutes in various continents is simply not possible.

Now, price manipulation, patent shenanigans, competition cock blocking, deceptive marketing, bribing doctors to prescribe certain drugs over others and etcetera, that does happen a lot.

About natural treatments and how they are almost completely ignored, it's not a conspiracy but the results are mostly the same: there's no financial incentive in running expense placebo/nocebo control group tests on stuff that people could just grow on their backyard or purchase at the grocery, so their effectiveness or ineffectiveness is rarely scientifically confirmed.

 

[Sàmban]

While I hate "big pharma" conspiracy theories, there is some element of truth to them. For example, we have a HUGE problem coming at us in the form of super resistant bacteria like CREs and we pretty much have nothing that works against them. New antibiotics are stupidly expensive to make and they are not nearly as profitable as chronic medications. So no one is really making them outside a few new ones that are mostly retweaks or combinations. Unless this changes, we're either fucked or forced to use nasty drugs like chloramphenicol.

 

[Smellycat]

While I hate "big pharma" conspiracy theories, there is some element of truth to them. For example, we have a HUGE problem coming at us in the form of super resistant bacteria like CREs and we pretty much have nothing that works against them. New antibiotics are stupidly expensive to make and they are not nearly as profitable as chronic medications. So no one is really making them outside a few new ones that are mostly retweaks or combinations. Unless this changes, we're either fucked or forced to use nasty drugs like chloramphenicol.

That is why the GAIN Act was introduced! It will help facilitate the approval process of new antibiotics for resistant bacteria. It provides an incentive for pharmaceutical companies to invest in this area of medicine by providing them with tax breaks and marketing exclusivity.

 

[Mike M]

While I hate "big pharma" conspiracy theories, there is some element of truth to them. For example, we have a HUGE problem coming at us in the form of super resistant bacteria like CREs and we pretty much have nothing that works against them. New antibiotics are stupidly expensive to make and they are not nearly as profitable as chronic medications. So no one is really making them outside a few new ones that are mostly retweaks or combinations. Unless this changes, we're either fucked or forced to use nasty drugs like chloramphenicol.

The fact that we don't have much is precisely why they are working on it in the hopes of being the only game in town when the brewing crisis bubbles over.

It's not that having a new form of antibiotic wouldn't be profitable, it's that it's difficult to develop and we haven't cracked the problem yet.

 

[TacticalFox88]

The fact that we don't have much is precisely why they are working on it in the hopes of being the only game in town when the brewing crisis bubbles over.

It's not that having a new form of antibiotic wouldn't be profitable, it's that it's difficult to develop and we haven't cracked the problem yet.

I think some GAFers need to take Pharmacy 101 and a crash course of how drugs are made.

 

[Mike M]

I think some GAFers need to take Pharmacy 101 and a crash course of how drugs are made.

That's actually not a terrible idea for a thread.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

I like Ambrose Bierce's definition of 'Prescription'

Prescription: A physician's guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient

*massive eye-roll*

 

[Skyzard]

They won't give you things to make you worse, they just might not make you better straight away. Either from poor training or poor policies that call for unnecessary investigations and maximum cost. Some doctors hate it when you ask them why. Because they fucking forgot/don't really know and they tell themselves it's because of disrespect.

Every investigation, research, ask why is this necessary, you can't rely on every doctor. Find out beforehand. They will say that is their policy for safe and accurate diagnosis before proceeding with the thing you desperately need. Look into multiple areas and assess first.

Everything is a headache, this can be a big one.

People need like a medical consultant for easy second opinions, but yeah everything costs.

Long live NHS.

 

[CyclopsRock]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if large pharmaceutical companies have better drugs out there, but I'd guess that a lot more of their unwillingness to release them comes from the various medical trials required before they can do so than patents and whatnot. As long as it costs them $x million to bring a new drug to market, then there's always going to be that amount plus some as expected higher profitability, or else it's just not worth it. For a lot of drugs, this bar likely won't get met.

 

[TacticalFox88]

That's actually not a terrible idea for a thread.

Well you're more knowledgeable than I am so this is all you

 

[Whitman's Ghost]

We are not fucked. You just manage things. They even started using Manuka honey for its special properties. The idea is don't prescribe these things for everything and anything under the sun. Save it for the things that matter the most.

 

[Whitman's Ghost]

Worst than that since if people actually believe that stuff and they have children... They and their children are screwed if they ever contract anything even remotely deadly and treatable and the laws around not taking your children to hospitals for such things are pretty murky. The scary thing about anti-vaxxing BS is that they don't understand that they're putting other people at risk as well and the more people try to educate a lot of these people, the more those people cower and say big pharma is trying to silence the "truth".

911 "truthinesses" just makes people not trust the government and/or oil companies which is already a popular idea. Not sure what not believing in the moon landing does to people's daily lives.

Yeah, I am not getting that either. Moon Hoaxers are interested in the idea that technology is not probable to get to the moon, mostly because we have never been back. These people are harmless.

9/11 Truthers are mostly just a gigantic mass of people that are weary of the government. None of them really seem to feel the same or spout the same rhetoric at all. Why only the crazy truthers get attention IDK. In these times we need people to question the government. I'll never understand why people are disgusted in questioning the government that has lied to us in so many ways over the years.

Nor do I understand seeming liberals defending of all people guys like Dick Cheney who did some very questionable and illegal things during his reign in office under Bush. It's okay to question truthers and debunk their wild theories but not all of those theories are really that crazy. You can't just lump everyone in with everyone else IMO. These groups are also relatively harmless.

 

[hammysaurusrex]

People who subscribe to this theory are incredibly naive as to how corporations work. "Big Pharma" is called Big Pharma because the work to lobby together in their best political interest, similar to other industries. However, when it comes to therapeutic classes of drugs they are extremely cutthroat and competition is fierce. The idea that, as a whole, they can control "the cure for cancer" or whatever it is this week is unfounded. As someone has already mentioned, the proliferation of hepatitis C drugs demonstrate that there is a ton of money in cure, because you can market a cure better than you can market at treatment.

 

[Cyber Caesar]

We live in a society where money is more important than a stranger. Bad shit is bound to happen. One day in the future we may look back on these times as the dark ages.

 

[CyclopsRock]

I'll never understand why people are disgusted in questioning the government that has lied to us in so many ways over the years.

I don't think it's the fact that they're "questioning the government" - there's nothing wrong with asking the questions, but the answers are out there too. And asking the questions is the only way you'll ever get to thoes answers. But those answers have been out there for a long time. The people still asking those particular questions are either massively bias in their belief system towards certain things (ie against the government) or otherwise have a massive axe to grind. There's no way a logical person can look at the evidence and come to the conclusion that the towers didn't fall as a result of planes hitting them. So why are they still asking the questions? Why not find some new, exciting questions to ask?

 

[hammysaurusrex]

"Questioning" is fine. However, making a claim without substantial evidence and then cowering behind a wall of "I'm just asking questions, dude!" is extremely obnoxious and does not need to be tolerated. It's basically a form of begging the question - you're inserting your premise into the conclusion; i.e., "so how often do you beat your wife?"

As people have pointed out, there's enough real fraud in the pharmaceutical industry that hearing about vaccines and autism, "the cure for cancer!", etc., is frustrating because it distracts from actual issues - like problems with me-too drugs, missing drug data, marketing practices, etc.

 

[squidyj]

i don't think there's a conspiracy in big pharma, i think there's a million levels of management trying to justify the budget in their department.

 

[MidgarBlowedUp]

Only GAF

gaf: Conspiracy theories are crazy!
gaf: Did you hear about that shady stuff this one company did?

Uh, wouldn't that be a conspiracy, I mean didn't they conspire to do something..um.. shady? Then again, if you have lobbyists change laws so you can get away with the conspiracy, it isn't a conspiracy anymore. The simple fact that pharmaceutical companies spend million of dollars per year on advertisement is enough for me to know that there is an agenda and it isn't always my well being. However, I'm more concerned with the health insurance companies than big pharma, that's where your conspiracy is. The conspiracy to drain as much money as they can from everyone and avoid actually covering the majority of medical costs. At least that's how it is in the red states.

 

[rykomatsu]

Only GAF

gaf: Conspiracy theories are crazy!
gaf: Did you hear about that shady stuff this one company did?

Uh, wouldn't that be a conspiracy, I mean didn't they conspire to do something..um.. shady? Then again, if you have lobbyists change laws so you can get away with the conspiracy, it isn't a conspiracy anymore. The simple fact that pharmaceutical companies spend million of dollars per year on advertisement is enough for me to know that there is an agenda and it isn't always my well being. However, I'm more concerned with the health insurance companies than big pharma, that's where your conspiracy is. The conspiracy to drain as much money as they can from everyone and avoid actually covering the majority of medical costs. At least that's how it is in the red states.

Conspiracy at a single big pharma level I suppose is when a single company might fudge or hide test results to pass FDA muster for the purpose of profits.

I think this thread is more along the lines of the big pharma industry colluding as a whole with the healthcare industry to promote their agenda.

More concisely, realistic conspiracy (which I don't think anyone really denies) vs tin foil hat conspiracy. The tin foil hat aspect is what's being called out if we were to clarify your comment/rhetorical question.

 

[params7]

I worked in network operations of one of the two biggest pharmas in this world. I have stumbled upon R&D documents, testing, etc on new drugs for diseases plenty of times. While doing technical maintenance I've seen their labs where I felt like I just stepped in a fancy Hollywood movie about bio warfare. So I'm going to call BS on the illumanity-esque conspiracy theories of big pharmas keeping breakthoughs down for purpose of making more money.

I will say that yes they don't entirely function with the best interest for humanity, since their ultimate motive is financial profit, but there's no way they could pull off such an elaborate conspiracy to put major cures down. That's just stupid. Even when rationalizing this extremely silly conspiracy theory, wouldn't the big wig bankers controlling society on their puppet strings want things like no cancer and longer life?

 

[Skyzard]

Only GAF

gaf: Conspiracy theories are crazy!
gaf: Did you hear about that shady stuff this one company did?

People are scared of the association with the word conspiracy when it just means not the official story. It would be moronic to not be open to considering anything else.

 

[Team Filler]

That's actually not a terrible idea for a thread.

Heh, the thread could be godwin'd from the get-go due to the history of ethics in medicine research.

 

[poppabk]

While I hate "big pharma" conspiracy theories, there is some element of truth to them. For example, we have a HUGE problem coming at us in the form of super resistant bacteria like CREs and we pretty much have nothing that works against them. New antibiotics are stupidly expensive to make and they are not nearly as profitable as chronic medications. So no one is really making them outside a few new ones that are mostly retweaks or combinations. Unless this changes, we're either fucked or forced to use nasty drugs like chloramphenicol.

Pharmaceutical companies pursuing profitable drugs over less profitable drugs is not a conspiracy.

 

[Zona]

Anytime someone tells me that Big Pharma (Or the government, or insert group here) has The Cure™ for cancer but just isn't releasing it I start twitching a little. Mostly because while we refer to cancer as if it's one specific thing, like chicken pox or polio, it's really not. It's a giant family of sort of related conditions. The idea that there can be one cure for everything we call cancer if laughable. Well I guess nanomachines could work, but other then that.

Even ignoring that, assuming there is just The Cure™, whoever had it would be selling the shit out of it! It's not like people will stop getting cancer! Hell if a cure existed I'd expect the tobacco lobby to have screamed it from the rooftops.