NP? war profits

[Doug Millison]

http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2001-11/02flanders.cfm


ZNet Commentary
Dear Mr. Secretary November 02, 2001
By Laura Flanders

Dear Mr. Secretary,

Congratulations on your recent deal with the Bayer Corporation of Germany.
The newspapers all seem very excited. You got Bayer to give you a cut price
on their famous anti-anthrax drug, Cipro.

Bayer has agreed to sell the administration 100 million tablets at 95 cents
a piece, instead of their usual $4.67 a pill. Congress will only be paying
Bayer $95 million, instead of almost half a billion dollars. That's great!

I did have one question. It's about India. On October 19, the government of
India offered to give the United States $1 million worth of generic Cipro
as a gift to help us with the anthrax scare. That would buy some 10 million
tablets in India, where Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals sells their version of the
same antibiotic for around 10 cents a pill. Ten million tablets could treat
more than 833,000 people absolutely free! Wouldn't that be helpful?

[...]

We're still a bit concerned. The postal workers in Washington were given
only ten days worth of Cipro. Your colleagues on Capitol Hill were given a
sixty-day supply. Is that because there are shortages of Cipro, Mr.
Secretary? If Cipro's the drug you think is best in these circumstances,
wouldn't it be great to have a cheaper supply -- and a whole lot of free
pills -- for those who are at risk, so that everyone who needs it could get
the same rofessionally-approved standard dose?

If we bought the pills from India, we'd only pay $20 to treat a person with
a complete ciprofloxacin therapy. The government could get the same number
of pills they're getting from Bayer at one-tenth of the price, and could
even resell to citizens who would otherwise have to pay 28 times as much.
The Bush administration's always telling us that government should be
frugal, and our national budget is suddenly bleeding red ink. Don't savings
like these make sense?

Besides, Mr. Thompson, from what you've said in the past about welfare, I
know you are a big believer in competition and the free market. You said
women who'd been receiving welfare in your home state of Wisconsin were
getting soft because of too much government aid.

Bayer owns the patent on Cipro until 2003 -- a drug, by the way that was
pushed through the FDA by government studies and military support -- and
that that patent protects their monopoly in the U.S. market. But in this
emergency situation, I think Bayer should have to compete - just like those
Wisconsin women had to! -- Even with firms in India, who can produce the
same product more cheaply, and get it to us fast.

We're pretty scared out here, Mr. Secretary, and we care a lot more about
protecting people than corporate patents right now. Don't you?

[...]

*   Cost of a 60-day supply in the U.S. of the anthrax-fighting antibiotic
Cipro, patented by Bayer: $700

*   Cost of a generic alternative, not available in the U.S. due to Bayer's
patent: $20

*   Amount of profits made by U.S. pharmaceutical industry last year, in
billions: $27

*   Amount that U.S. consumers would save if imports of generic
alternatives of all drugs were allowed in the U.S., in billions: $30

*   Amount that George Bush is willing to reduce costs of Cipro by
over-riding the Bayer monopoly, as the government of Canada did last month:
0

*   Amount that Georgie Porgie Bush received from the pharmaceutical
industry for his presidential campaign: $472,333

*   Number of former drug company executives in Bush's cabinet: 2

http://www.southernstudies.org/