underpants
underpants's JournalEmail from a 5th grade teacher about the girls in her class
I cannot express to you how absolutely wonderful this group of girls has been. I feel like I’m usually sending home e-mails about “girl drama,” but these eight ladies have been just the opposite. They are empathetic and patient and genuine. I always have girls that want and try to be this way; they are very tolerant of others who are different or don’t fit in. These girls are way beyond tolerant. They are accepting. They value everyone and they are leaders that encourage others to do the same. It’s kind of surreal and I am so thankful for all of them. They have read books about all kinds of different disabilities and have used that knowledge to help younger friends in our special education programs. At lunch they found every child that was sitting alone and invited them to eat with our class. This was not just a do-something-nice-feel-good idea. They befriended these children ALL year. One of the girls, who really struggles with social skills, remarked that she had never had a friend before this year. Another said that no one ever talked to her outside of class. I can’t imagine what those girls used to feel, and I don’t think your girls have any idea the lasting mark that they have left on the lives of others. Thank you so much for raising such amazing young ladies.
A favor - as a 15 year DU member I ask you to read this. BIG PHARMA "Pharma Bro" & Chariites
Source: Bloomberg Businessweek.
I was contacted about this story and did not comment. Ben Elgin is a top notch researcher/writer and you should Google his articles - oil, pharma, etc. - if he found me connected to this issue he is really top notch. We had a Facebook message conversation and he sent me a hand written letter. I used to work for one of these charities.
How Big Pharma Uses Charity Programs to Cover for Drug Price Hikes
Bloomberg Businessweek
That’s just a fraction of the total cost. Turing’s new price for an initial six-week course of Daraprim is $60,000 to $90,000. Who pays the difference? For Medicare patients, U.S. taxpayers shoulder the burden. Medicare doesn’t release complete data on what it pays pharmaceutical companies each year, but this much is clear: A million-dollar contribution from a pharmaceutical company to a copay charity can keep hundreds of patients from abandoning a newly pricey drug, enabling the donor to collect many millions from Medicare.
When Turing bought Daraprim and sought to boost its annual revenue from $5 million to more than $200 million, the use of patient-aid funds was considered essential, internal company documents show. Last May, as the company did its due diligence before the purchase, one executive warned in an e-mail that new, high copays would force toxoplasmosis patients to seek alternative drugs.
A year’s supply of Gleevec can be produced for less than $200, according to Andrew Hill, a researcher at the University of Liverpool. When the drug was introduced, in 2001, its U.S. price was $30,000 a year. At that level, it would have recouped its development costs in just two years, according to a letter from 100 cancer specialists, published in the medical journal Blood in 2013. The price is now up to $120,000 a year in the U.S. (It’s priced at drastically different rates around the world: $25,000 a year in South Africa, for example, and $34,000 a year in the U.K.)
In December the inspector general gave a favorable advisory opinion to Caring Voice Coalition, a charity that attracted $131 million in contributions last year. Five former managers and employees say Caring Voice favored drug companies that were donors over those that weren’t. Patients who needed donor companies’ drugs got help quickly, the former staff members say, while patients who had the same disease but used another company’s drug were sometimes steered away or wait-listed. The former employees asked that their names not be used because they signed nondisclosure agreements or they feared backlash from the charity’s executives.
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