Affordable Medicine

What you can to to lower it
In 1996, San Francisco’s ACT UP Golden Gatepublished Your Money or Your Life, a survey of AIDS drug prices which concluded that “the cost of the therapies is now a number one killer of people with AIDS.” It found that a year’s worth of the most basic, minimal treatment cost an average of $11,985. People with more advanced AIDS paid an average of $19,521 for a larger, stronger cocktail. These costs did not include doctor visits or diagnostic tests.

Oxandrolone is one drug which is so overpriced it is rarely prescribed – even though it is inexpensive to produce. It was prescribed as a wieght loss drug in the 60s, 70s and 80s. By 1989, all patents on oxandrolone had expired, and the drug was available as a generic for 30 cents per tablet (5-10 mg). However, a company called the Bio-Technology General Corporation (BTG) discovered in the nineties that it could be used as an effective defense against HIV-related wasting, a leading killer of people with more advanced AIDS. Under a law known as the Orphan Drug Act, which exists to encourage the development of new drugs to treat rare diseases, the government granted BTG seven years of exclusive marketing rights for the drug. Once BTG had secured this artifical monopoly, it raised the drug’s price to $3.75 per 2.5 mg tablet – a price increase of over 1,200%. At the previously FDA-approved dose of 10 mg per day, oxandrolone now costs patients $15 per day or $5,475 per year. At higher doses of 40 or 80 mg per day, the annual cost would be or $21,900 or $43,800, respectively.

Whenever confronted about the high prices of drugs, pharmaceutical companies claim that high research and development costs justify these prices. Most AIDS drugs, however, were developed with tapayer funds (especially through the National Institues of Health). Here is a list of AIDS medicines developed with taxpayer funds. Furthermore, a recent report from AIDS Action,
Silence = $, shows that the 15 largest pharmaceutical compnies spend three times as much on advertising and administrative costs.

What can you do about it?
1. DOWNLOAD, COPY, AND DISTRIBUTE THIS PAMPHLET! It is saved as a PDF file, so you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have it, click here to download it for free.
2. Support the Affordable Prescription Drugs Act. This act would end the regular practice of handing out patents and exclusive licenses to companies for medicines developed by American taxpayer funds. If you want to see this legislation passed into law, contact your Representative in the House. Express outrage that YOUR tax dollars were used to develop important drugs that were then licensed exclusively to firms that are now free to charge ridiculous monopoly prices. Let your representative know that you expectg him or hre to support legislation for the compulsory licensing of these medinces. Then contact your Senators and let them know the same thing. The number for both houses of Congress is 202-225-3121, and the operator can give you the phone number for any Representative or Senator.