Big Pharma jacked up drug prices over 1,000 times this year – research: Sky-high drug prices are forcing US patients to ration their medication. The US pharmaceutical industry has raised drug prices some 1,186 times this year, according to Patients for Affordable Drugs, an advocacy group seeking to rein in the sky-high cost of prescription drugs. The group published their analysis on Wednesday. Despite record profits, pharmaceutical companies jacked up the prices on 133 products between June 24 and July 5 alone, the group found, noting that the median price increase for 2022 was 5%. In July alone, 64 drug companies hiked their prices, according to Patients for Affordable Drugs. Companies like Pfizer, who have made unprecedented profits on their Covid-19 vaccine, have nevertheless continued increasing their prices on other drugs. Pfizer’s leukemia medicine, Besponsa, for example, has seen four price hikes since the pandemic began and now retails at $21,056 for a single vial. Another company, Amgen, has upped its price for autoimmune disease drug Enbrel so much and so often since acquiring the rights to the drug in 2002 that it outstripped even the record-beating US inflation rate. Between that acquisition and 2020, the company increased the drug’s price 27 times until it cost $5,554.96 per month – an increase of 457% over its initial cost. Two more price hikes took place this year, despite a 2020 investigation into Amgen’s pricing habits by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, in which the drug company’s practices were roundly condemned. The US has the highest-priced healthcare in the world despite yielding worse health outcomes than any other developed nation. The life expectancy of Americans is lower than all of their industrialized peers, even as their doctors are better-paid than doctors in other developed countries. https://www.rt.com/news/559348-big-pharma-drug-prices-skyrocketing/ Sore Loser: Russian Chess Robot Breaks Finger of Seven-Year-Old Opponent: A Russian chess-playing robot recently grabbed the finger of a seven-year-old opponent and broke it during the Moscow Open chess tournament. The VP of the Russian Chess Federation blamed the child for making his move too quickly. However, Lazarev had a different version of events, saying that the child “made a move, and after that we need to give time for the robot to answer, but the boy hurried and the robot grabbed him.” He noted that regardless, the robot manufacturers were “going to have to think again.” Baza said that the boy's name was Christopher and that he was one of the 30 best chess players in the Russian capital in the under-nines category. “People rushed to help and pulled out the finger of the young player, but the fracture could not be avoided,” Baza stated. Lazarev noted that the boy did not seem traumatized by the attack.“The child played the very next day, finished the tournament, and volunteers helped to record the moves,” he said. well, there is always a silver lining with every bad thing that happens. I hope the shortages will hinder them from celebrating "the festival of demons" this year. I hope they also have a lot of shortages of all the demonic outfits, hands,...................and all the repulsive stuff that is on display every year. https://toronto.citynews.ca/2022/07/30/halloween-candy-shortage/ They got so much Halloween candy stacked up in our local grocery store its over flowing on the shelves. But the price per bag is very expensive (over $5.00 a bag that used to be about $3.50 per bag) and I’m sure they shrunk the fun size bars and put less in the little boxes. 🙄 I’ve only been getting the junior mints this summer in the tv movie size boxes for $1.00 but I see they are cheating us because its less than half way full. 🙁 Its time to go … we’ve seen the world at its best … it all down hill from here on out …so much evil … so much cheating …
