and, @musicprnt, we could stop subsidizing drug prices in the rest of the world. Money could be saved by not marketing to consumers, too. R&D and clinical trials for safety and efficacy are not the places to slash costs.
Edited to say I agree with you, @musicprnt 
Mylan’s CEO made a good point about the middlemen taking a fat cut, unfortunately, that mesage flew over the public’s head because she was the wrong poster person for the cause (just like that thieving farmer was not a good poster person for the organic farmers in their fight with Monsanto, lol).
That said, to go back to the good news, my biotech stocks are holding their ground despite the Dow tanking. Of course, tomorrow is another day! 
@Building I think you hit it. The amount spent on drug marketing is crazy but on the flip side Reader’s Digest would probably go under without all those medical adds;-)
Do people REALLY go in to their doctor’s offices and ask for drugs by brand name? If they do, that floors me but I’ve never been one to want to take medication. I limit it to as little as possible, even OTC stuff.
Marketing costs is a scratch on the surface of what the public sees. Why can Costco sell a drug for $200 that Rite Aid sells for $700? Volume buying? Nope… Rite Aid is a pharmacy for doG’s sake, so it should have a decent negotiating power.
Another point. We all want big pharma to be transparent about their schmoozing the doctors, but do we want to pay the price of that compliance? Do you know that employees and contractors in a company that has a drug product on the market have to undergo a bunch of compliance training, such as what gifts can be given to whom and what needs to be reported and to whom etc.? That is also a (not insufnificant) cost of doing business. We can always go back to the times of foxes guarding the henhouse… Or pay the price.
Back to unicorns and rainbows and orange kittens.
@building:
Obviously, you are correct, there are a lot of problems with the pharmaceutical industry, and being allowed to advertise prescription drugs is one of them (I think the US is alone or maybe one of two countries that allows this), the drug companies spend a huge amount of money on marketing and advertising and it IMO is a problem, I don’t remember the stats but a somewhat significant percentage of name brand drugs are prescribed where older generations would have done just as well…and doctor’s have ties to the pharm companies that can create conflicts of interest.
As far as subsidizing other countries, that is true, they have price controls, we don’t. That raises an interesting question, if we (the US) puts price controls on drugs, what will happen to new drugs? If the companies can’t make a decent profit given the cost of development and failed drugs, then what happens? I think such a move would take an international agreement on what a fair ROI on a drug is and set the price based on that, but fat chance of that one
@bunsenburner;
Blaming the middle man has been the claim for a lot of things, problem is that while Mylen labs may not be responsible for the 600 dollar retail price, they jacked up the wholesale price the middle men pay by several hundred percent and as far as I can tell the bulk of that retail price increase was due to the wholesale cost going up.and that cost in part was caused both by the CEO’s stock compensation value and also because several hedge funds own significant shares in Mylen and like with many such stories, were pushing for double digit increases in profits rapidly, which is a hedge funds MO…so the middle man likely was part of the story, but that doesn’t change Mylen labs jumping the price of a product several hundred percent simply to generate more profits, rather than being a reflection of their costs of development or production for that matter.
Getting back to the original thread, I think there is positive going on, I think for the first time in several generations people have woken up to the fact that in many ways we the people have been asleep at the switch, have been complacent with the political process and its consequences, and are starting to use the voice we have. To be politically fair, it isn’t just one side, while it is pretty obvious I am not happy with the last election, there were a lot of people who realized the political process wasn’t working for them and voted for change (whether that was smart or silly I’ll leave up to history to decide in this discussion), likewise a lot of people who stayed out of the election, who didn’t vote or didn’t realize what was at stake, have woken up. The social media that in many ways defined the current president is now being used to galvanize those against him, and people are starting to realize that for example, “I am not voting, what difference does it make, the candidates are all the same” are starting to realize that isn’t true. Congressmen whose staffers expect a handful of calls (usually from older constituents IME), suddenly have e-mail and voice mail exploding on them, quite literally.
That is a good thing, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, one of the greatest checks and balances we have in the system, that has been non existent, is legislators knowing that they are being watched, that people care about what they are doing and they can 't just pretend like what they do won’t matter back home, with this kind of scrutiny it might. My local rep (who is republican), was one of those who voiced that we needed to repeal ACA since it was passed, that it wouldn’t work, I called his office recently to express my opinion on certain things being proposed by the president and how I felt about them, and the staffer told me that their phones have been ringing off the hook by people saying they didn’t want ACA repealed unless they had a good replacement plan, and the rep recently was quoted in the paper as saying he would not vote to get rid of subsidies or repeal the law unless a replacement met the needs out there. …compare this to where like 80% of people said congress stinks, but 90% like their local reps…
That’s exactly why I said the Mylan CEO was the wrong person to bring this up, just like Bowman was the wrong person to take on Monsanto. But the issue of middlemen is a real problem.
Ok back to the good news. My stocks are up 5%. (Can be down 10 tomorrow, lol).
More positive news:
We’ll see how long that lasts.
@greenwitch:
What is it they say, words are cheap but action is priceless…It is a positive he mentioned the LGBT community, but will those words translate into practice? Will those working for him respect that or treat that as “you know, something he just said to make himself look good, he doesn’t mean it”…time will tell, for now, all we can do is hope.
delete - I got fooled…
This popped up on my FB feed today and it’s cool:
http://www.interestingshit.com/nature/good-news-stories/
Some of the ones mentioned: 1. Pandas and manatees are no longer on the endangered species list, there’s a new invention that’s going to start sucking up all the floating plastic junk in the ocean and recycle it, etc etc.
And how cool is this? Your personal R2-D2 without the annoying squeaks!
http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/31/technology/vespa-robot-gita/index.html
My feel good story today:
MotherofDragons–I honestly started to post that webpage several days ago. I thought it had great good news. I did not post it because I thought I’d get in trouble because of its name. Haha. Thought CC might get upset with " interesting s…t"
But all should check it out! It had some very encouraging and good news!
Love it, @doschicos!
I am rolling on the floor in tears!!! :))
http://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2017/02/portland_woman_gets_snake_stuc.html
Gads. I can’t unsee that. Thanks a lot, @BunsenBurner. X_X