Drug company fined

[ditchdwellers]

A report today shows that a drug to treat thyroid problems rose in cost by 6000% over a ten year period, causing the NHS to stop supplying the drug which caused untold suffering to patients relying on it. The company that made it and private equity firms involved have been fined £100m.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/29/pharma-firm-advanz-fined-after-thyroid-tablets-price-inflation-of-6000

I realise that new drugs cost huge investment to produce, however this was pure greed.

[Sunny Clouds]

It's a start.

I'm also very encouraged by the project in America to find a method of producing insulin that, instead of simply being patented, can be shared as open-source.  I hope they do get proper advice to stop drug companies stealing the 'recipe' and profiting from it.  (Insulin can't be patented, only methods of producing it.)

I'd love to see that project take off in other directions.  Could various drugs in the thyroxine group of chemicals be 'home-made'?

I wonder what the outcome will be of the recent fines referred to in the article relating to overpricing of hydrocortisone tablets.

[ditchdwellers]

I hadn't heard of the insulin project. Sounds like a brilliant concept to me. 

Sunny, I can so totally relate to the examples you have given, particularly regarding cognitive testing and concerns about dementia. It has made me think about something else for which I need to ask advice, but that's for another thread. You have such a great way of expressing yourself; I've lost the ability to think as the brain fog and fatigue have got the better of me and I miss those days when I could be clear headed, wake refreshed, cycle to work, and stand up in front of a lecture room of students and engage on a level that now completely eludes me. (Just put that in there for perspective rather than a whinge)

One of my stories from the hospital involved an overnight stay earlier on this year. 
First thing in the morning, the doctor walked in to my darkened side room:
Doctor: "It's very dark in here!" turning on all the lights and shining the bedside light on my face. I cover my eyes. 
Me: "I have a migraine "
Doctor: "oh. Your right eye lid looks very swollen and puffy. It's not normal to look like that"
Me: "sorry, I'm a bit away with the fairies at the moment as they haven't brought round the meds yet, and I'm having a little difficulty concentrating with the migraine as well and the lights aren't helping " He doesn't take the hint and the lights remain on.
Doctor: (repeats stuff about my eye)
Me: "I'm in the middle of a cluster headache season. Of course it's puffy and swollen."
Doctor: "well it's not normal and I'm very concerned about it. But I'm more concerned by your admission that you have memory problems " and promptly started trying to do a mini mental state exam on me! 

It all ended in complete disaster with me fiercely arguing with the doctor and telling him he was a complete idiot who should be struck off for incompetence.    Serves him right for not listening to me! He didn't have the courtesy to introduce himself when he walked into the room either, which I class as total arrogance.  Plus there were errors on my discharge summary diagnosis that I demanded be changed before I left the ward. I really didn't want his mistakes indelibly placed on my medical records, so I staged a sit in at the nurses station until it was sorted by a lovely but frazzled junior doctor.

[Sunny Clouds]

Sadly, I wasn't assertive enough when it mattered and have a couple of foul lies on my clinical records, one by a GP years ago, who misunderstood something he heard, and another on my psychiatric records when someone junior doing an annual review ascribed nasty criminal intent to an accident.  I prefer to think that the person simply misread something rather than that they made a malicious assumption or even deliberately lied, but that doesn't excuse the consultant and trust's lawyer, each of whom said they couldn't change it, the other had to do it.  With hindsight, I wish I'd gone to Private Eye, but it's too late for that.