In case anyone missed goldenheart's excellent post this morning I've linked to it.

[politicaljunkie41910]

Last edited Fri Apr 27, 2018, 01:00 AM - Edit history (1)

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210542552

Transcript:

According to a great new report by Lee Camp on Truthdig, Wall Street bankers actually believe that curing diseases here in the United States is bad for business.

According to an analyst with Goldman Sachs, analyst by the name of Salveen Richter, this is what he had to say in a recent report for Goldman Sachs. “Is curing patients a sustainable business model? The potential to deliver one-shot cures is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies. While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.”

Yes, a Goldman analyst has said outright that curing people will hurt their cash flow. And he said that in a note designed to steer clients away from investing in cures. Can “human progress” have a bottom? Because if so, this is the bottom of so-called human progress—down where the mud eels mate with the cephalopods. (Or at least that’s how I picture the bottom.)

Sustained cash flow is what bankers and pharmaceutical companies, that’s what they value more than they value your life. They admitted that. That’s what’s right there, in their own documents.

They want sustained cash flow, they want chronic illnesses, illnesses that make you have to go in for therapy once a month, or twice a month, or every other month, whatever it is, as long as you keep coming back for more. If they cure you, you’re done. You don’t go back. You don’t have to spend money, you don’t have to get more test run, you don’t have to buy more medicine. They’re out of their cash flow. It’s not sustainable. And now you understand why in the United States it seems like we’re not curing anything anymore. ...

...But we now have confirmed evidence that Wall Street bankers, pharmaceutical companies, and everybody involved in medicine here in the United States, they value the money that you pay for coming back, and back, and back, and back, more than they value your life to develop a cure.

And that is the problem with for-profit medicine here in the United States, and none of that is going to change until we rein in these pharmaceutical companies, and we get the government somehow involved in this in a much better way, to prevent them from gouging us every time we go refill a prescription, and make sure that they’re actively working on trying to cure Americans and not just drain our wallets.

https://trofire.com/2018/04/25/wall-street-says-that-curing-diseases-is-bad-for-business/

[SunSeeker]

1. K & R

[politicaljunkie41910]

3. Well worth reading. Discouraging investors from investing in cures should be illegal.

[Stryst]

6. It is a crime,against humanity.

If our laws do not stop it, then we have to.
It doesn't matter if it's legal or not, it is a crime and crime should be prevented and punished.

"The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing" - Edmund Burke

[Hoyt]

4. Actually, if you read some other reports, the suggestions offered by the analyst bode well

for other cures:

Solution 1: Address large markets: Hemophilia is a $9-10bn WW market (hemophilia A, B), growing at ~6-7% annually."

"Solution 2: Address disorders with high incidence: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) affects the cells (neurons) in the spinal cord, impacting the ability to walk, eat, or breathe."

"Solution 3: Constant innovation and portfolio expansion: There are hundreds of inherited retinal diseases (genetics forms of blindness) … Pace of innovation will also play a role as future programs can offset the declining revenue trajectory of prior assets."


As all too common, Truthdig has taken a quote on a complex topic out of context. The analyst is not saying businesses shouldn’t seek cures. We wouldn’t have Hepatitis C meds that are essentially a cure, the booming genetic therapy industry, antibiotics, vaccines, etc., if pharmaceutical companies were opposed to cures and prevention.

I would prefer more government research and some form of price controls as long as it doesn’t stifle innovation, or at least balances it with costs.

[patphil]

5. I know this to be true because

I worked for a major pharmaceutical company for over 35 years. All in quality control as a chemist, supervisor, and finally as a system administrator.
I remember one meeting where the vice-president of Quality Control/Quality Assurance came to our site to talk to us...a group of about 300 people.
At one point he said that the goal of the company was not to cure disease, but to treat the disease, and managed the symptoms to provide the customer with a reasonable quality of life.
Of course this required that the medication we sold be used for the lifetime of the patient. His point was this. Cure and illness and lose a customer.
Put a patient on a maintenance drug and he is yours for life. It's all a matter of dollars. One month's profit for a cure or decades of profit for "acceptable quality of life".
Not a shred of decency or ethics in that!
Pat Phillips

[Duppers]

7. The profit margin is

the thing that runs Wall Street which runs the banks, which runs our evolved capitalism. And yet the average middle-class republican voter thinks that great wealth is earned ONLY by hard work and ingenuity.

[snort]

11. Ugh. Thanks for posting.

[pangaia]

8. This apparently has been the case with cancer research for decades.

[not fooled]

9. Why U.S. public health policy

doesn't push first and foremost for healthful dietary changes. Especially with pukes in charge.

Many diseases of modern life could be greatly mitigated or cured through diet.

[misanthrope]

10. Considering I have an incurable condition

and receive weekly augmentation therapy in addition to regular meds, then I hope I'm coming back over and over and over and over. The alternative is death.

[area51]

12. Keeping the for-profit model in medicine

is insane. It's long past time to make health care in the US a basic human right.

[BobTheSubgenius]

13. And "for profit" is the key phrase.

This is as sinister a manifestation of rapacious capitalism as the GM memo that said it would be cheaper for them to settle the occasional lawsuit than to rework certain vehicles so they wouldn't explode.

Charming.

[Scurrilous]

14. K&R

[Dr Hobbitstein]

15. Lee Camp, the anti-Hillary conspiracy theorist?

The guy who thinks Russia meddling in the election is a hoax?

I don't believe a word he says.