Big Pharma Creates Customers, Not Cures

Big Pharma Creates Customers, Not Cures - It's the CEO's #1 Job

Big Pharma is not in business to see sick people get well. They do not want to find the cure for cancer. The mission statement of any hardline CEO is this: to maximize profits for shareholders. Don’t take my word it though. Who am I? Just some dude blogger trying to sell an opinion? Take it from guys like Martin Shkreli, former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals. Shkreli was notoriously vilified a few years ago when he raised the price of life-saving drug Daraprim, a drug used to treat toxoplasmosis in pregnant women, people with HIV and those with compromised immune systems, by 5,000% percent overnight. Shkreli originally stated that by increasing the price of each pill from $13.50 to $750 each, that the greater profits generated would be able to be poured into greater research of the disease. However, during a recent healthcare summit hosted by Forbes, he can be quoted as saying, “I should have raised it higher and made more profits for our shareholders. Which is my primary duty.”

This may come as a shock to some. Many throw around the term Big Pharma without realising the full weight of debasement held within the definition of such a title; but what Shkreli did was not illegal, nor was it a rare practice within the industry. Below I’ve thrown together a couple more examples to help show how corrupt and driven by nothing but swinish greed Big Brother Pharma is.

BAYER

Who hasn’t heard of Bayer? Makers of Aspirin, keepers of your granddad’s healthy heart, recent acquirers of GMO seed company Monsanto. Bayer’s a big name. They’re involved in a lot, have been for some time too. They’re not just makers of aspirin, however. You may be surprised to discover that Bayer had its origin not in the manufacturing and marketing of NSAIDs at all, but in the peddling of arguably one of the world’s most addictive drugs, a new medicine it rolled onto the shelves in 1858. That medicine’s name was Heroin, a malady promoted as a cough, cold and “irritation remedy” for children up until 1912. Kenaz Filan, author of the book The Power of the Poppy and several other titles writes, “Believing, (incorrectly) that heroin produced less respiratory depression than codeine. Bayer presented heroin as a safer children’s cough suppressant. It was also touted as a cure for morphine addiction and a panacea against, among other things, depression, bronchitis, asthma, tuberculosis and stomach cancer.”

Bayer’s dark history, unfortunately, does not end there. It also has its roots tied deep in murder, genocide and slavery. See, Bayer used to be known as IG Farben. Well, kind of.

It was Bayer, together with two other chemical giants, BASF and Hoechst that banded together In 1925, to form the giant cartel, IG Farben, which quickly became the world’s leader in pharmaceuticals, dyes, and chemicals. This syndicate became the single largest campaign donor to the election campaign of Adolf Hitler and when Hitler officially rose to power, IG Farben reached a formal contract with the Reich, setting up a product testing factory at none other than the infamous Auschwitz. It was at Auschwitz that IG Farben developed Zyklon B, a pesticide that became the Nazi regime’s favorite product to be used for the mass extermination of Jews.

After the war was over, 24 IG Farben board members and executives were sentenced to prison for their part in these crimes against humanity. Ironically, none of them received lengthy sentences and all were eventually released to continue their work in the pharmaceutical industry.

These days IG Farben is recognized by its modern names, Bayer, BASF and Hoechst/Aventis.

In 1995 Bayer issued a public apology for its involvement in the holocaust.

The Mylan Epipen Scandal

Maybe you’ve never heard of of Mylan, but most of us have probably heard of EPiPens. When you’re mid throe a life-threatening allergic reaction you’re going to want one of these babies there to save your life.

Mylan Pharmaceuticals purchased the rights to epipens about 10 years ago. Over the next half-a-decade Mylan spent close to 8 million dollars lobbying to make EpiPens mandatory in schools. A noble affair right? Who doesn’t want their children to be safe. The move seemed in line with a statement on their website that reads, “Why Mylan? Because our passion, innovation and commitment drive us to set new standards in health care. Seeing is believing.” Today, 11 states require EpiPens and another 38 permit their usage.

In the same year, Mylan spent 4 million dollars lobbying for the Federal EpiPen Law, which provided financial incentives to states requiring EpiPens. What did this mean? In short, that the government would now subsidize the growing cost of EpiPens for cash-strapped states. Mylan Pharmaceuticals had hit paydirt. Once the federal government was on the hook Mylan seemingly ditched all noble notions of the greater good. Despite the fact that it only costs 1 dollar to manufacture an EPiPen two-pack, the company had jacked up the price for consumers from 100 dollars, to over 600.

History is filled with horrifying instances of big businesses with unlimited funds taking advantage of human beings like they are nothing more than cattle for the express purpose of boosting profit margins. But what am I getting at? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know that big pharma spends millions annually on biased, well-designed, stringently controlled research, all constructed to “prove” the ineffectiveness of any alternative medicine that can challenge any of their chemically concocted poisons, but how are they going to spread their evil to cannabis, other than trying to prevent its advance?

Well that’s easy. Like everything else big pharma does, it’s going to take a perfectly normal safe thing, corrupt it and then release it to the masses at ungodly prices that no one can afford. If you still think I’m some cracked-out conspiracy theorist, check this out- they’ve already started frankensteining cannabis into something to be kept high out of reach of children, and with a lengthy list of side effects.

GW Pharmaceuticals is a british company responsible for manufacturing the first FDA-approved drug that contains a substance derived from weed. The CBD oral solution was approved in June 2018 to treat severe, childhood-onset epilepsy syndromes in people ages 2 and over. Some of the conditions the medication treats are Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.

Side effects of the first government sanctioned cannabis medication include: decreased appetite, diarrhea, elevated liver enzymes, fatigue, infections and insomnia. (I don’t know about you, but aside from hitting the couch after a particularly heavy Indica, I have never experienced a single one of those in my twenty years of smoking, nor can I say, that I know of anyone whom has.)

How much does Epidiolex cost? Don’t worry, it’s only 32,500$ per patient, per year. Sound high? The company insists that it is pricing the drug to be “in line” with other drugs for this segment of the market.

On the Epidiolex product description page, in which you can also sign up to get a free Epidiolex carrying case! (Oh joy!), users are also warned, “Epidiolex may cause suicidal thoughts or actions…call a health care provider right away if you have any signs of depression or anxiety, thoughts about suicide or self-harm.”

Make no mistake, the people that benefit most from the ethics of big pharma are not the patients that the great medical minds of this day and age are “trying to help.” They are the shareholders, the law-makers and those in positions of power, all out to make a quick buck and damn the rest.

So what now? Where do we go from here? Well, how the hell should I know? I’m just some dude blogger trying to sell an opinion right? But the snake only survives if it’s fed. There is no big pharma without the people; no corruption of life-giving herbs; no indebting yourself to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a pill with a long list of side-effects to combat the first pill you took’s long list of side-effects. As a human race, for the betterment of our species healing is most often found in what the earth provides, not by reaching into the pockets of big pharma and looking for health.