Friday, March 11, 2011

The Face of Our Benevolent FDA

The brilliant minds in the FDA have decided to grant a monopoly to Ther-Rx on the production of Makena, a drug to prevent premature births, that was previously produced by non-FDA-approved compounding facilities for about $10 an injection. The new, FDA-approved, "under monopoly" price?

$1,500 per injection.

Did I mention that an at-risk mother may need up to 20 injections throughout her pregnancy? Must be part of the government's push to "lower health care costs" by cutting out that greedy "free market".

I think this sentence says it all:

"The cost is justified to avoid the mental and physical disabilities that can come with very premature births, said KV Pharmaceutical chief executive Gregory J. Divis Jr."

For anyone who needs it, the translation to that sentence is: "We know parents will pay anything to save their child, and now that we have government guns backing up our cease-and-desist letters to the cheap producers, we'll get a chance to see just exactly how much that is."