In a recent post, I showed two drugs that were much more expensive in the United States than elsewhere. One was for rheumatoid arthritis and the other for hepatitis C. Today we get to look at a cancer drug, Avastin, and just how much more Americans pay for it than people in other countries.
This is not acceptable.
If you eat lots of meat, then you are contributing to global warming. Animals like cows require lots of grain, and they emit lots of methane; therefore, demand for hamburger increases CO2 emissions. Here’s a picture from the Washington Post illustrating how much we can reduce emissions by changing our diets:
Take a look at the image below and decide what you are seeing: Some of you might have seen a “B.” Others might have seen the number 13. The image, after all, is ambiguous. For that reason, in fact, it was used by researchers to study how our hopes influence our perceptions. The study design…
If Americans judged the quality of hospital care the way Newsweek judges high schools, we would soon be inundated with “charter hospitals” that only treat healthy patients. As reported in The New YorkTimes , thirty-seven of Newsweek’s top 50 high schools have selective admission standards, thereby enrolling the cream of the eighth grade crop. That means…
Here is a fascinating picture from the Wall Street Journal, showing how much Medicare has been spending on hepatitis C treatments lately. You can see that the cost is rising dramatically: Keep in mind, however, that the new and expensive hepatitis C treatments currently on the market will dramatically reduce costs in the future, because…
See this great piece by a reporter at Forbes discussing why rare disease treatments can cost as much as $400,000 per patient, per year. You will get a glimpse of my take on this topic too, but I plan on writing more about it in the future.
My article with Peter Bach of Memorial Sloan Kettering continues to generate debate. The two of us argues that copay assistance programs from pharmaceutical companies help specific patients in the short run, but make it easier for drug companies to demand high prices for their products. Here is one take on the topic, spurred on…