Drug Cost Crisis
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According to the Food Allergy Research and Education group one in thirteen children under the age of 18 have food allergies in the United States. With a total of 15 million Americans having food allergies. That’s a huge amount of people at risk for an Anaphylaxis reaction and need an epinephrine auto-injector.
This fall the pharmaceutical company Mylan, the maker of EpiPen, came under fire for charging upward of $600 for the two-pack set. The set cost $94 in 2007 when Mylan bought EpiPen. The same set only cost $69 in the U.K., less than $100 in France, and just over $200 in Germany.
During this same time, state governments are being pushed by allergy awareness and advocacy organizations to pass laws requiring that schools have EpiPens on hand for easy access in case of an emergency. This is mostly due to 50 percent increase of food allergies among kids between the years 1997 and 2011 according to the CDC.
Mylan does offer the My EpiPen Saving Card, that if people who qualify to save up to $300 off, it use to be where people could only get up to $100. For those that qualify it would allow them to pay $0 depending on what their insurance covers.
Mylan has 94 percent of the market share for the epinephrine auto-injector. This is for a multitude of reasons. Doctors do not prescribe the generic auto-injector and many people do not always know that there is a generic brand to ask for instead. Doctors do not normally prescribe it because the auto-injectors are slightly different to where people are not as trained in how to use them as they are in the name brand EpiPen. The EpiPen device itself is what is expensive, not the epinephrine drug that it contains.
The other reason is that Auvi-Q, which is another epinephrine auto-injector was recalled October 2015, and has not been brought back onto the market. There have been talks that the Auvi-Q will be rereleased in 2017.
It is not just with epinephrine auto-injectors, where pharmaceutical companies control the prices in the market on life-saving medicines, where that make it out of reach where it makes it difficult for people to be able to afford it. Other companies including AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Merck have all come under fire in recent years for price hiking their pharmaceutical drugs on the market.
According to the Wall Street Journal, prescription drug prices rose 10 percent between May 2015 and May 2016, while the cost of other essentials (food, clothing, etc.) averaged a less than six percent hike.
Affordable health care isn’t just making sure people can afford insurance, but making sure that the medication people need is available at a price that is affordable. People shouldn’t have to hope they don’t have an Anaphylaxis reaction and don’t have to go to the hospital versus knowing they have the medication in case they do. Epinephrine is the first line of action when an anaphylaxis reaction happens, waiting until you get to the hospital may mean it’s too late.
This piece was written for my writing for media class.
This fall the pharmaceutical company Mylan, the maker of EpiPen, came under fire for charging upward of $600 for the two-pack set. The set cost $94 in 2007 when Mylan bought EpiPen. The same set only cost $69 in the U.K., less than $100 in France, and just over $200 in Germany.
During this same time, state governments are being pushed by allergy awareness and advocacy organizations to pass laws requiring that schools have EpiPens on hand for easy access in case of an emergency. This is mostly due to 50 percent increase of food allergies among kids between the years 1997 and 2011 according to the CDC.
Mylan does offer the My EpiPen Saving Card, that if people who qualify to save up to $300 off, it use to be where people could only get up to $100. For those that qualify it would allow them to pay $0 depending on what their insurance covers.
Mylan has 94 percent of the market share for the epinephrine auto-injector. This is for a multitude of reasons. Doctors do not prescribe the generic auto-injector and many people do not always know that there is a generic brand to ask for instead. Doctors do not normally prescribe it because the auto-injectors are slightly different to where people are not as trained in how to use them as they are in the name brand EpiPen. The EpiPen device itself is what is expensive, not the epinephrine drug that it contains.
The other reason is that Auvi-Q, which is another epinephrine auto-injector was recalled October 2015, and has not been brought back onto the market. There have been talks that the Auvi-Q will be rereleased in 2017.
It is not just with epinephrine auto-injectors, where pharmaceutical companies control the prices in the market on life-saving medicines, where that make it out of reach where it makes it difficult for people to be able to afford it. Other companies including AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Merck have all come under fire in recent years for price hiking their pharmaceutical drugs on the market.
According to the Wall Street Journal, prescription drug prices rose 10 percent between May 2015 and May 2016, while the cost of other essentials (food, clothing, etc.) averaged a less than six percent hike.
Affordable health care isn’t just making sure people can afford insurance, but making sure that the medication people need is available at a price that is affordable. People shouldn’t have to hope they don’t have an Anaphylaxis reaction and don’t have to go to the hospital versus knowing they have the medication in case they do. Epinephrine is the first line of action when an anaphylaxis reaction happens, waiting until you get to the hospital may mean it’s too late.
This piece was written for my writing for media class.