How Government regulation allows Businesses to maximize profits at our expense
Source Article here...
http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-premature-drug-03092011,0,4847507.story
So for years doctors have recommended that women at high risk of premature labor receive synthetic progesterone injections to minimize that risk.
Thing is that there was no commercially available product to do this, so women would go to a Compounding Pharmacy where the pharmacist would mix up a batch and give them the injection with a usual price of between $10 and $20.
Now a drug company has actually taken the time to take this product which has existed for years and put it through the FDA approval process and it is commercially available.
At a price of $1500 per dose.
Further they are threatening FDA action against any compounding pharmacy which dares to continue to offer the treatment
Now of course the typical leftie out there will call this a market failure and an example of why we cannot trust the free market because of corporate greed like this. What they are always willing to overlook is that it is only by the existance of the FDA regulations on what can and cannot be sold as medicine and by whom that the have the power to do this.
Without the FDA in place, they could charge $1500 per dose all they wanted and they would never sell a single dose because everyone would continue to use the compounding pharmacies as they always have.
Yes Greed exists, but in a free market its effect is largely minimized because no one has the power to force anyone to buy their product. However the minute government steps in and begins to create legal restrictions on what can and cannot be done it allows those with the drive to do so to use those restrictions to their own advantage and secure profits thousands of times higher than they could have ever achieved in a system of unlimited competition.
http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-premature-drug-03092011,0,4847507.story
So for years doctors have recommended that women at high risk of premature labor receive synthetic progesterone injections to minimize that risk.
Thing is that there was no commercially available product to do this, so women would go to a Compounding Pharmacy where the pharmacist would mix up a batch and give them the injection with a usual price of between $10 and $20.
Now a drug company has actually taken the time to take this product which has existed for years and put it through the FDA approval process and it is commercially available.
At a price of $1500 per dose.
Further they are threatening FDA action against any compounding pharmacy which dares to continue to offer the treatment
Now of course the typical leftie out there will call this a market failure and an example of why we cannot trust the free market because of corporate greed like this. What they are always willing to overlook is that it is only by the existance of the FDA regulations on what can and cannot be sold as medicine and by whom that the have the power to do this.
Without the FDA in place, they could charge $1500 per dose all they wanted and they would never sell a single dose because everyone would continue to use the compounding pharmacies as they always have.
Yes Greed exists, but in a free market its effect is largely minimized because no one has the power to force anyone to buy their product. However the minute government steps in and begins to create legal restrictions on what can and cannot be done it allows those with the drive to do so to use those restrictions to their own advantage and secure profits thousands of times higher than they could have ever achieved in a system of unlimited competition.