Kuttner: Stop the Rx Profiteers

[Mark Pavlick]

>
>Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 17:02:57 -0400
>
>http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-000083378oct19.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dcomment%2Dopinions
>
>October 19, 2001  
>
>COMMENTARY
>Stop the Rx Profiteers
>
>By ROBERT KUTTNER, Robert Kuttner is co-editor of the American Prospect
>
>
>Depending on what terrorists do next, the United States could be on the
>verge of a public health catastrophe.
>
>The administration is moving--belatedly--to develop stocks of
>antibiotics to treat anthrax. The government also is looking to procure
>300 million doses of smallpox vaccine to inoculate a new generation.
>
>Bayer, the maker of the anthrax antibiotic Cipro, resisted government
>efforts to mandate patent licensing, which would enable other labs to
>manufacture an emergency supply. The generic version of Cipro is easily
>produced for a tiny fraction of the $350 for a month's dosage that Bayer
>charges. Producers in India sell that much generic ciprofloxacin for
>about $10. Another antibiotic, doxycycline, is just as effective as
>Cipro to treat anthrax. A month's treatment of doxycycline retails for
>about $20.
>
>But until this crisis, Cipro was the only drug approved by the Food and
>Drug Administration explicitly to treat anthrax exposure caused by
>inhalation of spores.
>
>Meanwhile, the trade association of brand-name drug makers, the
>Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, has
>convened a task force of chief executives from the industry to address
>the extra production needs. This sounds good, but PhRMA explicitly
>excludes makers of generic drugs.
>
>There is a name for this behavior: war profiteering.
>
>We should hardly be surprised. This is the same industry that mightily
>resisted supplying inexpensive AIDS drugs to Africa until it was shamed
>by world public opinion and outfoxed by makers of generic equivalents in
>India and Brazil. The Third World basically dared American and European
>drug makers to take them to court, and PhRMA blinked first.
>
>What is good enough for a public health emergency also is sound policy
>for everyday emergencies. Millions of people are denied medicine they
>need because they have to choose between paying to fill expensive
>prescriptions and eating. We need federal controls on drug prices and
>more production of generic drugs financed by public funds.
>
>The other part of this story has to do with public health. For 20 years,
>public health has been a stepchild of federal policy, while both parties
>have supported prodigious increases in the budget for the National
>Institutes of Health.
>
>What magic does NIH possess? The drug industry loves it because the NIH
>finances the basic research on which the industry relies to make its
>customized products and exorbitant profits. Every time a particular
>disease comes into vogue as a public cause, the drug industry jumps on
>the bandwagon and gets another hike in NIH funding.
>
>It makes sense for the public to fund basic research. But then taxpayers
>should not have to pay twice via high prices at the drugstore.
>
>Neither is it sound policy to favor research that helps the drug
>industry while short-changing public health and epidemiological efforts
>that could safeguard more people at lower cost.
>
>Let's rein in drug company profits and rebuild our public health system
>so that all Americans can get the drugs and vaccines that we need at the
>lowest possible cost.
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