Peter Atwater Quotes

This quotation is notable as it shows that problems that are not dealt with in one generation can continue for generation after generation. Today we have the exact same problem with overly expensive drugs. In a capitalistic system, every business with good products and sales should make profits. But products that people need to say alive, most people think, should not make larger profit percentages than almost any other business. But this problem is over half a century old in America.

The major killer diseases such as malaria and sleeping sickness are not contracted by Americans, and America is the only large country in the world where the Governments allow the drug companies to charge such high prices and make such huge profits. So any drug that Americans might pay for is a better potential profit generator than one that would be critical to the lives of millions where the governments to preserve lives would force the prices down or allow other companies to also make the drug. See {628648} for other factors affecting drug company priorities.

The “inflated prices” refers to the fact Americans pay more for pharmaceuticals than any other country in the world as the American government allows the companies to charge any amounts while other governments either negotiate or mandate much lower prices.

The immediate trigger for this statement was the Mylan Company’s price increase of 500 percent for Epi-pens which people—frequently children—needed to carry to contact a bad allergic reaction that would other wise put them into anaphylactic shock which could be fatal. One of the reasons the company gave for the increase was that their marketing costs were very high. The practice of paying physicians to use a drug and then give testimonials and pitch the drug had long been controversial, but in 2016 the public learned that the practice was much more widespread than anyone had known. Making the situation worse was the fact that physicians would prescribe the drug for their patients and had no obligation to tell the patient or his/her family that he was being paid by the drug company. The Congress held hearings but did nothing at the time.

Despite huge lobbying and political pressure, Dr. Kelsey would not sign off on the drug initially because she found information on her own about Thalidomide that the company, Merrell, must have known about and didn't reveal to her and her staff or in their applications. She was aware that the drug had been approved by England, Canada, and many nations of Europe, but she saw little data in the Merrell submissions and responses and that made her suspicious, and caused her to demand more. During the time the company was to submit more data, the reports of the deformed newborns were starting to come in from the countries that had approved the drug. When she gathered that information, she rejected the application and prevented thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of children to be born with missing limbs because their mothers had been treated with Thalidomide. In 1962 she was awarded the highest civilian medal by President John F. Kennedy.

See Eddie Bernice Johnson {605259} & Barbara Tuchman {626144} for similar views and John Stuart Mill {607508} for an earlier expression. See {638618} for a Sociology principle that is similar. The earliest expression of the idea can be found in the Bhagavad Gita {594723}

Later American politicians expounded the same view. See Otis Singletary {585931} and Eddie Bernice Johnson {605259}. The earliest expression of the idea can be found in the Bhagavad Gita {594723}

See Eddie Bernice Johnson {605259} for a similar view and John Stuart Mill {607508} for an earlier expression. Otis Singletary for a contemporary one {585931} The earliest expression of the idea can be found in the Bhagavad Gita {594723}

See Eddie Bernice Johnson {605259} & Otis Singletary {585931} for similar views and John Stuart Mill {607508} for an earlier expression. The earliest expression of the idea can be found in the Bhagavad Gita {594723}