As an alternative, the next time I am sick, I will visit my homeopath, pay her fee, and be thankful to avoid expensive and harmful Pharmaceutical Medicine altogether!
AstraZeneca, the giant Swedish-British Pharmaceutical company, is to invest $405 million in Britain. So good news, then? The an outline of the deal, for anyone who wants to see, this Medscape link has summarised it.
However I want to focus on just one part of the agreement, the underlying reason for the deal.
“The investment follows praise from drug makers, including AstraZeneca, for a US-UK agreement aimed at increasing drug prices in Britain in line with the Trump administration’s new US pricing policy”.
Pharmaceutical medicine is incredibly expensive. Drug prices are already high. Drug companies, like AstraZeneca, are incredibly wealthy. The Pharmaceutical Industry is the most wealthy sector of the world economy - bar none. There are no economic reasons to increase the cost of drugs; higher production costs; increased demand; supply issues. As the article states:
“AstraZeneca … reported earnings that beat expectations helped by demand for its cancer and rare disease drugs”.
So this is largely a political deal between the US and UK governments.
Plus some industrial blackmail by a powerful industry, and a UK government desperate for new investment.
“Last year AstraZeneca pulled back on a £200 million investment plan in Cambridge.…. It also scrapped plans for a £450 million vaccine manufacturing plant in Northern England after government support was cut”.
So some power politics are at play in this situation. It is clear that the UK government lost, the Drug Company won, USA patients may pay less for their drugs, and UK’s NHS, and its patients, will pay more.
The Pharmaceutical Medical Establishment has little to do with our health, and much more to do with finance and wealth creation.
Personally, the next time I am sick I will visit my homeopath again! Homeopathic remedies are cheap. I will pay the homeopath for her time, training and experience, and her fee will prevent a doctor prescribing an ineffective, expensive, and expensive drug - a consider it a good deal.
