Premature Death, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo 213

March 14, 2011 Mike Gold 0 Comments

See that kid over there? He might as well have been me. I was born one day short of two months premature. That happened in 1950, so I used up all my good luck before I left the incubator.

Obviously I survived, but even sixty years later being born two months early carries one hell of a risk. Thankfully, for years doctors have a medicine that makes the odds a lot better. The stuff has a good track record; this is no Thalidomide situation. It’s a type of progesterone injected into the mother-to-be each week. Before today, treatment cost about $15.00 a dose. Not bad… but that was then.

This is now. As of today, this stuff costs $1,500.00 a hit. That’s around $30,000.00 to get the mother-and-child-to-be out of both the womb and the hospital.

And you were worried about the skyrocketing cost of gasoline.

This stuff had been made cheaply because some of the pharmacies that made it were not necessarily “federally approved.” Despite its extremely positive record, the March of Dimes thought it would be better if the stuff was made at a federally sanctioned company.

Cue the foreboding Law and Order sting.

K-V Pharmaceutical of Missouri won exclusive government approval to sell the stuff that they call Makena, and the price got jacked up 1000%. The FDA is powerless to dictate pricing; that’s the American Way.

Usually these chemical companies defend their lethal pricing policies by saying they need to pay off massive research and development costs. But this stuff was developed and approved already. These bastard children of Uncle Scrooge and Jack The Ripper are ripping people off on a scale undreamed of by Bernie Madoff.

“I’ve never seen anything as outrageous as this,” said Dr. Arnold Cohen, of the Albert Einstein Medical in Philadelphia, told the Associated Press. Dr. Roger Snow, deputy medical director for Massachusetts’ Medicaid program, told the AP “That’s a huge increase for something that can’t be costing them that much to make. For crying out loud, this is about making money.”

Even the insurance industry, hardly a friend to the less-than-wealthy, the unemployed, and the pre-existing sick, is appalled. “I’m breathless,” said Dr. Joanne Armstrong, the head of women’s health for Aetna.

If you think this only affects the poor and the uninsured, you’re still in shock. The cost will be passed along to everybody who pays for insurance, to state-run Medicaid programs, and to the taxpayers. Even if you’ve got a great health program and you’re past the point where you’re planning a family, you are going to be paying for K-V’s massive greed.

K-V CEO Gregory J. Divis Jr. rationalizes his company’s hysterical lust for profit by noting it’s very expensive to raise a preemie – some $51,000.00 during the first year – and their drug “can help offset some of those costs.” (Emphasis mine.) “These moms deserve the opportunity to have the benefits of an FDA-approved Makena.” And those preemies whose families can’t get it deserve the opportunity to drop dead.

By the way, according to Forbes Magazine Mr. Divis was paid $412,627.00 in 2009. Not bad for a dude with a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Iowa. I’ll bet you that’s more than Adolf Hitler paid Adolf Eichmann. But in 2009, Divis was merely the head of one of K-V’s subsidiaries. He was anointed CEO last year, and one presumes his compensation package now reflects his current responsibilities.

K-V announced a patient assistance program that might help some who are uninsured and low-income. I believe them: some people will receive assistance. But we’ve heard this before, and we’ve heard it a lot. Yet, somehow, the poor and the uninsured are still dropping dead from preventable illness in massive numbers.

It’s not as if K-V actually conceived of this stuff. They simply snared monopolistic rights to produce and market it. Let a bunch of companies in on the action; hopefully, a few will possess some shred of humanitarian concern.

Divis says his company is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in new research.
Aetna’s Armstrong said she was unaware of any quality concerns. The drug has been on the market for fifty years. If it’s no damn good, why do they sell it?

I’m sure Mr. Divis sleeps well. I’ll bet he sleeps like a baby.

Well, some babies.

Rabble-rouser and www.ComicMix.com editor-in-Chief Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind rock-and-blues radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com, every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, replayed three times during the week (check the website above for times). Likewise, his Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind political and cultural rants are inflicted upon the unsuspecting each and every day at the same venue.