This
from the BBC :
“People paying privately for weight-loss drug Mounjaro in the UK
face a rise in the cost of the treatment after manufacturer Eli Lilly said it
was increasing the list price of the drug by as much as 170%. It means the
suggested price for a month's supply of the highest dose of the drug will rise
from £122 to £330…”
Drug companies can take such action, and they will probably
get away with it. Eli Lilly already makes enormous profits. Their gross profits
for the financial year 2004-5 was $40.034 billion, a 38.99% increase
year-over-year. So this new price increase is not justified in terms of the
financial situation of the company, and is unlikely to result from the costs of
production, or inflation, or any other economic justification - other than
profiteering!
Nor would I expect the mainstream media, or the government to
protest about such profiteering! Big Pharma is too important for both of them;
Big Pharma appears to be too powerful for either to question or challenge. They
will stay quiet, happy to allow the NHS, and taxpayers to pay; and for people
buying the drug privately to cough up the extra money.
Yet the situation is far
worse than this.
Patients are likely to pay a much higher price than the
financial cost. I first wrote about Mounjaro (Oxempic, Wygovy, et al) in
September 2020, when the promotion of these ‘new’ weight-loss drugs first began,
and I pointed out that they were not ‘new’.
“Semaglutide is NOT a new drug. It
was discovered in 2012. Clinical trials began in 2015, and were completed in
2016. It was approved later in the same year. And this 'wonder drug', even after
just 5 years, is already known to have serious side effects that go far beyond
the gastrointestinal system. Certainly it causes stomach upset, stomach
tenderness, stomach fullness, nausea, gaseous abdominal pain, indigestion, etc.
But, according to the Drugs.com website, it is also known to cause recurrent
fever, yellow eyes or skin, blurred vision, chills and cold sweats, confusion,
discouragement, dizziness, fast heartbeat, feeling sad or empty, headache,
increased heart rate, increased hunger, irritability, loss of consciousness,
loss of interest or pleasure, nervousness, nightmares, seizures, shakiness,
slurred speech, tiredness, trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping and unusual
tiredness”.
So the drug was neither new or safe. The point I was making then was
that it was unethical to promote a drug so vigorously with so little mention of
known and serious adverse reactions.
Regardless, the promotion continued, both
by government and mainstream media, and by February 2024, when I wrote another
article, it was clear that the drugs had become so popular, and in demand, that
the drug companies would be making enormous profits.
Therefore I could only
assume that conventional medicine had ‘forgotten’ about their experience with
another weight-loss drug, 20 years earlier. Acomplia was an obesity drug,
approved in 2006, and (of course) hailed as a new 'wonder drug'. In 2008 the
drug was refused a licence in the USA, and withdrawn in the UK and Europe,
particularly over fears of serious adverse reactions, particularly depression
and suicide. The medical 'science' which had proclaimed this wonder drug, was
found to be 'faulty'.
"one study discovered that one-third of people on the drug
lost 10% of their body weight, and 60% lost a less impressive 5%. Apparently,
what the study did not say was that everyone in the trial was also on a
low-calorie diet, and virtually everyone put the weight back on once they
stopped taking the drug".
So yet another example of pharmaceutical medicine not
learning from their history; or maybe not caring to when in hot pursuit of large
profits! The serious adverse drug reactions to Mounjaro, Oxempic and Wygovy have
not disappeared. They are all given here for anyone who wants to see them.
Patients taking these drugs may lose weight, however temporarily; but each time
they take the drug they are increasing their risks of serious illness and
disease through their ‘side effects’. So there is little doubt many patients
will pay a personal price which will prove to be far higher than the proposed
£208 increase in the cost of Mounjaro. Their health. And the NHS will have to
pay a price far higher than the cost negotiated with Eli Lilley - the secondary
cost of providing medical care for the enormous patient harm the drug will
almost certainly cause.
Perhaps, one day not too far away, we will learn that
pharmaceutical medicine is a hugely profitable industry based on its ability to
promote drugs successfully that ultimately are found to cause serious harm and
misery to patients.
