Surprise, surprise, it's big Pharma.
You see, there is a synthetic form or progesterone that has been around for decades, and has been shown to reduce the risk of early labor, and hence premature children.
It's a weekly shot, and for years, custom pharmacies have been compounding it, and women at risk of premature babies are given a weekly shot, costing about $10-15.
Well, KV Pharmaceutical in St Louis got permission to sell the drug exclusively as an FDA approved compound, it's called, and they RAISED THE PRICE TO $1500.00 A SHOT, or about $30,000 over the term of a pregnancy.
A drug for high-risk pregnant women has cost about $10 to $20 per injection. Next week, the price shoots up to $1,500 a dose, meaning the total cost during a pregnancy could be as much as $30,000.
That's because the drug, a form of progesterone given as a weekly shot, has been made cheaply for years, mixed in special pharmacies that custom-compound treatments that are not federally approved.
But recently, KV Pharmaceutical of suburban St.Louis won government approval to exclusively sell the drug, known as Makena (Mah-KEE'-Nah). The March of Dimes and many obstetricians supported that because it means quality will be more consistent and it will be easier to get.
Let's be clear, the March of Dimes is not approving because it will save lives, it's because they are a bunch of
whores capitalists who have been bought and paid for. They get lots of money from KV's subsidiary, Ther-RX:
The March of Dimes, which gets hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from Ther-Rx, celebrated the approval in a press release, saying if all women eligible for the shots receive them, nearly 10,000 spontaneous premature births could be prevented each year.
"For the first time, we have an FDA-approved treatment to offer women who have delivered a baby too soon, giving them hope that their next child will have a better chance at a healthy start in life," said Dr. Alan Fleischman, the organization's medical director.
Celebrated, huh, with all that dirty money, it must have been Champagne and Caviar.
You see, there has been a treatment for decades, but it's not an FDA approved one, but there is one now, and, " Last month, KV sent cease-and-desist letters to compounding pharmacies, telling them they could face FDA enforcement actions if they kept making the drug.
The kicker is that the drug is over 50 years old:
Hydroxyprogesterone caproate is also the same drug as a much older one called Delalutin, which was approved by the FDA in 1956 and was used to treat female hormone disturbances and cancer, but withdrawn from the market for business reasons in 2008, the agency says.
"Makena is chemically the same as Delalutin," Burgess said.
And Delautin has been noted to prevent pre-term births since at least 1985.
Why the fuck are granting a government sanctioned monopoly for a drug that has been around for 54 years, that has been know to have this benefit for at least 25 years, so that some bunch of contemptible greed heads can raise its price by 10,000%?
Grrr!!!
[on edit]
OK, the title is changed. Better?