7 ms·

I accidentally discovered one of the most egregious pharma scams imaginable

73 points by rmason 4y ago

alexfromapex 4y ago
It would be nice to have the government create accountability for doctors and pharma companies to prevent frivolous pricing. Of course, regulating the prices of drugs that have OTC ingredients in them would likely create pressure to make less things available over the counter which is also not ideal.
tadfisher 4y ago
The failure at every level here is astounding. 1. The pharma company selling Unisom+B6 for $800, with the FDA apparently not batting an eye. I mean, these are OTC substances, so it's probably safe for consumption, but still. 2. The doctor prescribing an $800 drug with two known, cheap, OTC ingredients. Probably receiving kickbacks. 3. The pharmacy accepting the prescription and billing insurance for a bullshit drug without informing the patient of an OTC alternative, when anyone who is licensed as a pharmacist knows the drug is Bullshit with a capital B and would save the customer $777.50 in needless expense. 4. The insurance company denying coverage, presumably with a form letter, without telling their customer about the OTC alternative. What's to stop me from creating a pharma startup marketing a combination Vitamin D and acetaminophen as a treatment for back pain, selling it for $1000, and blasting doctors' offices with cold calls? Not our government(s), apparently.
- teclordphrack2 4y ago
- ekianjo 4y ago
  Agree with some of your points but you are missing something essential here. You don't pay for the cost of the ingredients in pharmaceutical products (otherwise the cost of most drugs would be 1/10th of what they are or even less), but for the IP behind it. You need clinical trials to demonstrate that something works for a specific condition, and this is what gets an approved stamp by the FDA and integration with the reimbursement system, along with a negotiation on pricing. If there were no such incentives, then nobody would do any kind of clinical trial for compounds that are already widely available in OTC form, and the only thing you would have is anecdotal evidence (i.e. noise) to know what works or not. Whether this is the right way to incentivize research and development is a valid topic to discuss, however.
  - asdff 4y ago
    To be fair its not so simple. You fund the clinical trial perhaps, but you also fund shareholder profits. This incentive model is actually pretty perverse because there are diseases that aren't seeing drugs developed because they are so rare that a treatment will never be given to enough patients to turn a profit. A better incentive model is to have the government identify diseases that lack a solid treatment option and fund clinical trials through direct taxation versus profiting off of the sick or abusing the for profit insurance process to cover these huge fees.
    - ekianjo 4y ago
      > A better incentive model is to have the government identify diseases that lack a solid treatment option and fund clinical trials through direct taxation The government is the worst tool for this job, because they would need to hire external experts to assess which disease should be studied, and those experts would be already in bed with the industry for a long time. You would just be diverting tax-payer money in a different way.
      - asdff 4y ago
        How do you think government research money is currently directed? Sure you get people from industry but you also get people from academia and government as well filling these positions. That's basically anyone with domain knowledge. Sure people can be corrupt and evil or whatever, but that's why you have other checks in your system to deal with it. If you think it can't be done just because 'government', that's not a strong argument because literally any sort of person in any position in any org, public or private, could be corrupted, and the race to the bottom of this logic is to trust nothing and no one.
      - coldtea 4y ago
        >The government is the worst tool for this job, because they would need to hire external experts to assess which disease should be studied, and those experts would be already in bed with the industry for a long time. There's no need to "hire external experts". They could have their own pool.
- ezoe 4y ago
  Comparison with Japan: 1. The price of drugs are regulated. There is no chance such a bullshit drug just combining OTC ingredients are allowed to be sold with such a high price. 2. Since there is no bullshit expensive drugs, doctors don't need to worry about it. Rebate is prohibited, but even if it exists, you can't prescribe the drugs you can't use. 3. I'm not sure about the quality of pharmacy in Japan but they regularly call doctor when they have concerns about the prescription and they switch to generic drugs on default unless patient strongly object not to. 4. Universal Health Care. The govt regulate the insurance so it's either all covered by insurance or nothing.
  - tomcam 4y ago
    How many new drugs is Japan developing? From what I can tell, a fraction of what we do. The free market is pretty damn good at that.
    - toomuchtodo 4y ago
      The US pays the most for healthcare for worse outcomes. Free market not doing so great. An expensive new drug is not necessarily an effective drug, nor is a free market required to innovate. The US imports a very effective lung cancer immunotherapy vaccine from Cuba, for example (CIMAvax EGF). https://khn.org/news/article/medicare-ruling-aduhelm-controversial-alzheimer-drug-critics/ https://khn.org/news/article/medicare-ruling-aduhelm-controv... https://hbr.org/2021/10/the-u-s-can-lower-drug-prices-without-sacrificing-innovation https://hbr.org/2021/10/the-u-s-can-lower-drug-prices-withou... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CimaVax-EGF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CimaVax-EGF
    - rentfree-media 4y ago
      If it's so good at it, why does it always need government funding? (As testified before a congressional committee by an FDA official, his response to the question of "how many drugs receive government research funding?" was "all of them.")
      - ekianjo 4y ago
- wutwutwutwut 4y ago
  Comparing to Sweden, 1 and 2 could happen here as well. But since government subsidies costs over 1200 SEK ($120), the pharmacy will always suggest the cheapest alternative (by law). If doctor prescribes something for $2 but an alternative exists which is only $1 then pharmacy will suggest the one for $1.
- low_tech_love 4y ago
  If we stopped scamming people and did things right the way you described, the system would collapse.
- tpoacher 4y ago
  > Probably receiving kickbacks. In the best case scenario. The more likely, and actually worse scenario, is that they have no idea either. Doctors get "free samples" all the time, and are so conditioned to receiving "freebies" by drug reps unquestionably that they aren't even aware of their biases after a while.
ekianjo 4y ago
The most amazing part is that this is FDA approved but there was been no efficacy nor safety studies conducted with the exact Bonjesta formulation that is being discussed here: > Commentary: There have been no efficacy and safety trials conducted with Bonjesta. A double-blind, randomized, multicenter, placebo-controlled study was conducted to support the safety and efficacy of 10-mg doxylamine succinate and 10-mg pyridoxine hydrochloride tablets (a different formulation and dosage strength) in the treatment of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. Women 18 years of age or older at seven to 14 weeks gestation (median, nine weeks) with nausea and vomiting were randomized to 14 days of 10-mg doxylamine succinate and 10-mg pyridoxine hydrochloride tablets or placebo. The primary efficacy endpoint was the change from baseline at day 15 in the Pregnancy Unique-Quantification of Emesis (PUQE) score. The PUQE score incorporates the number of daily vomiting episodes, number of daily heaves, and length of daily nausea in hours for an overall score of symptoms rated from 3 (no symptoms) to 15 (most severe). At baseline, the mean PUQE score was 9.0 in the 10-mg doxylamine succinate and 10-mg pyridoxine hydrochloride tablets arm and 8.8 in the placebo arm. There was a 0.7-point mean decrease in nausea and vomiting symptoms from baseline in PUQE score at day 15 with 10-mg doxylamine succinate and 10-mg pyridoxine hydrochloride tablets (95% confidence interval, 0.2–1.2; P = 0.006) compared with placebo. according to this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5215271/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5215271/ Maybe the manufacturer has realized this and is apparently now conducting an actual clinical trial, focusing on adolescents, probably for an expansion of its indication: "A Multicenter Trial of the Efficacy and Safety of Bonjesta® for Nausea and Vomiting of Pregnancy in Pregnant Adolescents" https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05289557 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05289557 the FDA is a running joke at this stage. Why would anyone trust that agency is beyond me.
- isitmadeofglass 4y ago
  > there was been no efficacy nor safety studies conducted with the exact Bonjesta formulation Would you expect this? Not every drug on the market goes through safety and efficacy tests of their exact formulation do they? The point of safety and efficacy testing is to establish that it’s safe and effective, and this can be done in general for a drug, and then múltiple different formularios might enter the market. You don’t redo crash tests of cars because you change the interior lining.
ralmidani 4y ago
There is a growing consensus that private insurance is an outright scam. Many people also know there’s plenty of shadiness on the Pharma side. But a __doctor__ enabling this kind of predatory behavior? Financial harm, rather than bodily harm, may not be against the text of the Hippocratic Oath and the various laws it has inspired, but I would argue it violates their spirit. There are doctors who have done far worse things like assault young girls and prescribe chemo for patients who don’t need it, but they are in jail and (hopefully) will never practice Medicine again. I guess the absence of laws against the behavior highlighted in OP means the doctor did nothing illegal, but the failure to prevent it is a systemic one. This doctor unambiguously betrayed the patient’s trust, and we need laws to prevent such things from happening. The Medical-Industrial Complex must be broken up.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > But a __doctor__ enabling this kind of predatory behavior? Systems that reward, encourage and enforce sociopathy eventually end up promoting sociopaths to all levels of power and authority at the top.
  - achillesheels 4y ago
    That’s why it’s important to teach young people that the soul exists :)
    - krageon 4y ago
      I'm assuming this is a joke but even assuming that I don't see why this is funny.
paviva 4y ago
Pharma and rich greedy doctors are an easy target, but reality is (always) more complicated. Pyridoxine/doxylamine is nothing new, and was released in the USA in the fifties, and withdrawn from the market in the early eighties due to numerous (baseless) lawsuit alleging it caused birth defects. This formulation is known as Diclectin in Canada, where there were no lawsuits (and thus, no withdrawal), and it costs pennies. The medication was reintroduced in the USA about 10 years ago as Diclegis by another manufacturer, and Bonjesta is essentially Dicglesis with improved pharmacokinetics (whether this matters clinically is another question). It is interesting to note that Bonjesta is produced by Duchesnay USA, which is owned by the Canadian company Duchesnay, which markets Diclectin here in Canada. I suspect that no American company is willing to risk a lawsuit *even* at the current seemingly absurdly high pricing. Duchesnay USA is essentially a mono-pill company, and I imagine that the strategy is that they're willing to go under in case of a class action.
rmason 4y ago
I do not think government is the solution. Free enterprise for the win. There are two startups tackling the problem. The first is a YC company CostPlusDrugs which has now received backing from Mark Cuban. Started by a physician they're manufacturing 100 common drugs and selling them for a 15% markup over cost. They've also said that they will never go public. The second is CapitalRx which is a middleman (known as a PBM) that is working for a flat fee and passing on their cost on drugs. Just like the Jeff Bezos famous quote your margin is their opportunity!
- asdff 4y ago
  Is this different than the profit model of any other generic drug company? For example, in the vet world I switched from Revolution to generic Revolt for half the price, because the patent for Revolution expired (selamectin). Is costplusdrugs presumably taking even less of a margin than whoever is competing for my generic selamectin order, or the CVS brand equivalent of tylenol?
  - rmason 4y ago
    Truth is it's a bit complicated and hidden. Marketing with smoke and mirrors to obscure what's being done behind the curtain. If you want to quickly get up to speed here's back to back interviews with the founders of both companies that I reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Am4Pw7B7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Am4Pw7B7g
- EdwardDiego 4y ago
  It is in every other country.
- __void 4y ago
  > I do not think government is the solution. mmmh I don't know, for the rest of the planet (except for a handful of backward African and Middle Eastern countries), however, it works... so here we're almost at the classic title of the onion: 'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
kgeist 4y ago
The most egregious pharma scam must be homeopathy. At least Vitamin B6 has some effect. Kickbacks from pharma is a very common practice in the developing country I live in, what's much worse is when doctors recommend completely bogus snake oil like Oscillococcinum. Doctors here often explain such behavior that their wage is not enough to feed family etc. so they have sponsorship from companies, but currently their wage is among the highest in the country, now it's just greed. Another thing is that we have an official, government-backed list of "vital drugs" which includes homeopathic treatments and some of the board members of the company which produces them are government officials who made the list, or their relatives. It's preying on the weak.
jeffrallen 4y ago
It's not better in Switzerland, where yesterday I was sold 35 francs of medicine that MSF could have delivered for less than a franc. The Hippocratic oath does not, apparently, apply to pharmacists, or to patient's wallets.
voidmain 4y ago
Sounds like the POTAXOR strategy [1]. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/15/fish-now-by-prescription/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/15/fish-now-by-prescripti...
mbfg 4y ago
the twitter account is deleted
mdrzn 4y ago
Twitter account was deleted? Changed name? Got kidnapped by BigP? Interesting...
natpalmer1776 4y ago
Looks like the account associated with these tweets was deleted. Here is a link to the archive.org copy of the original thread: https://web.archive.org/web/20220728040832/https://twitter.com/HankHeil/status/1552334139172454400 https://web.archive.org/web/20220728040832/https://twitter.c...

73 points by rmason 4y ago

It would be nice to have the government create accountability for doctors and pharma companies to prevent frivolous pricing. Of course, regulating the prices of drugs that have OTC ingredients in them would likely create pressure to make less things available over the counter which is also not ideal.

tadfisher 4y ago

The failure at every level here is astounding. 1. The pharma company selling Unisom+B6 for $800, with the FDA apparently not batting an eye. I mean, these are OTC substances, so it's probably safe for consumption, but still. 2. The doctor prescribing an $800 drug with two known, cheap, OTC ingredients. Probably receiving kickbacks. 3. The pharmacy accepting the prescription and billing insurance for a bullshit drug without informing the patient of an OTC alternative, when anyone who is licensed as a pharmacist knows the drug is Bullshit with a capital B and would save the customer $777.50 in needless expense. 4. The insurance company denying coverage, presumably with a form letter, without telling their customer about the OTC alternative. What's to stop me from creating a pharma startup marketing a combination Vitamin D and acetaminophen as a treatment for back pain, selling it for $1000, and blasting doctors' offices with cold calls? Not our government(s), apparently.

teclordphrack2 4y ago
ekianjo 4y ago
Agree with some of your points but you are missing something essential here. You don't pay for the cost of the ingredients in pharmaceutical products (otherwise the cost of most drugs would be 1/10th of what they are or even less), but for the IP behind it. You need clinical trials to demonstrate that something works for a specific condition, and this is what gets an approved stamp by the FDA and integration with the reimbursement system, along with a negotiation on pricing. If there were no such incentives, then nobody would do any kind of clinical trial for compounds that are already widely available in OTC form, and the only thing you would have is anecdotal evidence (i.e. noise) to know what works or not. Whether this is the right way to incentivize research and development is a valid topic to discuss, however.
- asdff 4y ago
  To be fair its not so simple. You fund the clinical trial perhaps, but you also fund shareholder profits. This incentive model is actually pretty perverse because there are diseases that aren't seeing drugs developed because they are so rare that a treatment will never be given to enough patients to turn a profit. A better incentive model is to have the government identify diseases that lack a solid treatment option and fund clinical trials through direct taxation versus profiting off of the sick or abusing the for profit insurance process to cover these huge fees.
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    > A better incentive model is to have the government identify diseases that lack a solid treatment option and fund clinical trials through direct taxation The government is the worst tool for this job, because they would need to hire external experts to assess which disease should be studied, and those experts would be already in bed with the industry for a long time. You would just be diverting tax-payer money in a different way.
    - asdff 4y ago
      How do you think government research money is currently directed? Sure you get people from industry but you also get people from academia and government as well filling these positions. That's basically anyone with domain knowledge. Sure people can be corrupt and evil or whatever, but that's why you have other checks in your system to deal with it. If you think it can't be done just because 'government', that's not a strong argument because literally any sort of person in any position in any org, public or private, could be corrupted, and the race to the bottom of this logic is to trust nothing and no one.
    - coldtea 4y ago
      >The government is the worst tool for this job, because they would need to hire external experts to assess which disease should be studied, and those experts would be already in bed with the industry for a long time. There's no need to "hire external experts". They could have their own pool.
ezoe 4y ago
Comparison with Japan: 1. The price of drugs are regulated. There is no chance such a bullshit drug just combining OTC ingredients are allowed to be sold with such a high price. 2. Since there is no bullshit expensive drugs, doctors don't need to worry about it. Rebate is prohibited, but even if it exists, you can't prescribe the drugs you can't use. 3. I'm not sure about the quality of pharmacy in Japan but they regularly call doctor when they have concerns about the prescription and they switch to generic drugs on default unless patient strongly object not to. 4. Universal Health Care. The govt regulate the insurance so it's either all covered by insurance or nothing.
- tomcam 4y ago
  How many new drugs is Japan developing? From what I can tell, a fraction of what we do. The free market is pretty damn good at that.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    The US pays the most for healthcare for worse outcomes. Free market not doing so great. An expensive new drug is not necessarily an effective drug, nor is a free market required to innovate. The US imports a very effective lung cancer immunotherapy vaccine from Cuba, for example (CIMAvax EGF). https://khn.org/news/article/medicare-ruling-aduhelm-controversial-alzheimer-drug-critics/ https://khn.org/news/article/medicare-ruling-aduhelm-controv... https://hbr.org/2021/10/the-u-s-can-lower-drug-prices-without-sacrificing-innovation https://hbr.org/2021/10/the-u-s-can-lower-drug-prices-withou... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CimaVax-EGF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CimaVax-EGF
  - rentfree-media 4y ago
    If it's so good at it, why does it always need government funding? (As testified before a congressional committee by an FDA official, his response to the question of "how many drugs receive government research funding?" was "all of them.")
    - ekianjo 4y ago
wutwutwutwut 4y ago
Comparing to Sweden, 1 and 2 could happen here as well. But since government subsidies costs over 1200 SEK ($120), the pharmacy will always suggest the cheapest alternative (by law). If doctor prescribes something for $2 but an alternative exists which is only $1 then pharmacy will suggest the one for $1.
low_tech_love 4y ago
If we stopped scamming people and did things right the way you described, the system would collapse.
tpoacher 4y ago
> Probably receiving kickbacks. In the best case scenario. The more likely, and actually worse scenario, is that they have no idea either. Doctors get "free samples" all the time, and are so conditioned to receiving "freebies" by drug reps unquestionably that they aren't even aware of their biases after a while.

ekianjo 4y ago

The most amazing part is that this is FDA approved but there was been no efficacy nor safety studies conducted with the exact Bonjesta formulation that is being discussed here: > Commentary: There have been no efficacy and safety trials conducted with Bonjesta. A double-blind, randomized, multicenter, placebo-controlled study was conducted to support the safety and efficacy of 10-mg doxylamine succinate and 10-mg pyridoxine hydrochloride tablets (a different formulation and dosage strength) in the treatment of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. Women 18 years of age or older at seven to 14 weeks gestation (median, nine weeks) with nausea and vomiting were randomized to 14 days of 10-mg doxylamine succinate and 10-mg pyridoxine hydrochloride tablets or placebo. The primary efficacy endpoint was the change from baseline at day 15 in the Pregnancy Unique-Quantification of Emesis (PUQE) score. The PUQE score incorporates the number of daily vomiting episodes, number of daily heaves, and length of daily nausea in hours for an overall score of symptoms rated from 3 (no symptoms) to 15 (most severe). At baseline, the mean PUQE score was 9.0 in the 10-mg doxylamine succinate and 10-mg pyridoxine hydrochloride tablets arm and 8.8 in the placebo arm. There was a 0.7-point mean decrease in nausea and vomiting symptoms from baseline in PUQE score at day 15 with 10-mg doxylamine succinate and 10-mg pyridoxine hydrochloride tablets (95% confidence interval, 0.2–1.2; P = 0.006) compared with placebo. according to this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5215271/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5215271/ Maybe the manufacturer has realized this and is apparently now conducting an actual clinical trial, focusing on adolescents, probably for an expansion of its indication: "A Multicenter Trial of the Efficacy and Safety of Bonjesta® for Nausea and Vomiting of Pregnancy in Pregnant Adolescents" https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05289557 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05289557 the FDA is a running joke at this stage. Why would anyone trust that agency is beyond me.

isitmadeofglass 4y ago
> there was been no efficacy nor safety studies conducted with the exact Bonjesta formulation Would you expect this? Not every drug on the market goes through safety and efficacy tests of their exact formulation do they? The point of safety and efficacy testing is to establish that it’s safe and effective, and this can be done in general for a drug, and then múltiple different formularios might enter the market. You don’t redo crash tests of cars because you change the interior lining.

ralmidani 4y ago

There is a growing consensus that private insurance is an outright scam. Many people also know there’s plenty of shadiness on the Pharma side. But a __doctor__ enabling this kind of predatory behavior? Financial harm, rather than bodily harm, may not be against the text of the Hippocratic Oath and the various laws it has inspired, but I would argue it violates their spirit. There are doctors who have done far worse things like assault young girls and prescribe chemo for patients who don’t need it, but they are in jail and (hopefully) will never practice Medicine again. I guess the absence of laws against the behavior highlighted in OP means the doctor did nothing illegal, but the failure to prevent it is a systemic one. This doctor unambiguously betrayed the patient’s trust, and we need laws to prevent such things from happening. The Medical-Industrial Complex must be broken up.

unity1001 4y ago
> But a __doctor__ enabling this kind of predatory behavior? Systems that reward, encourage and enforce sociopathy eventually end up promoting sociopaths to all levels of power and authority at the top.
- achillesheels 4y ago
  That’s why it’s important to teach young people that the soul exists :)
  - krageon 4y ago
    I'm assuming this is a joke but even assuming that I don't see why this is funny.

paviva 4y ago

Pharma and rich greedy doctors are an easy target, but reality is (always) more complicated. Pyridoxine/doxylamine is nothing new, and was released in the USA in the fifties, and withdrawn from the market in the early eighties due to numerous (baseless) lawsuit alleging it caused birth defects. This formulation is known as Diclectin in Canada, where there were no lawsuits (and thus, no withdrawal), and it costs pennies. The medication was reintroduced in the USA about 10 years ago as Diclegis by another manufacturer, and Bonjesta is essentially Dicglesis with improved pharmacokinetics (whether this matters clinically is another question). It is interesting to note that Bonjesta is produced by Duchesnay USA, which is owned by the Canadian company Duchesnay, which markets Diclectin here in Canada. I suspect that no American company is willing to risk a lawsuit *even* at the current seemingly absurdly high pricing. Duchesnay USA is essentially a mono-pill company, and I imagine that the strategy is that they're willing to go under in case of a class action.

rmason 4y ago

I do not think government is the solution. Free enterprise for the win. There are two startups tackling the problem. The first is a YC company CostPlusDrugs which has now received backing from Mark Cuban. Started by a physician they're manufacturing 100 common drugs and selling them for a 15% markup over cost. They've also said that they will never go public. The second is CapitalRx which is a middleman (known as a PBM) that is working for a flat fee and passing on their cost on drugs. Just like the Jeff Bezos famous quote your margin is their opportunity!

asdff 4y ago
Is this different than the profit model of any other generic drug company? For example, in the vet world I switched from Revolution to generic Revolt for half the price, because the patent for Revolution expired (selamectin). Is costplusdrugs presumably taking even less of a margin than whoever is competing for my generic selamectin order, or the CVS brand equivalent of tylenol?
- rmason 4y ago
  Truth is it's a bit complicated and hidden. Marketing with smoke and mirrors to obscure what's being done behind the curtain. If you want to quickly get up to speed here's back to back interviews with the founders of both companies that I reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Am4Pw7B7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-Am4Pw7B7g
EdwardDiego 4y ago
It is in every other country.
__void 4y ago
> I do not think government is the solution. mmmh I don't know, for the rest of the planet (except for a handful of backward African and Middle Eastern countries), however, it works... so here we're almost at the classic title of the onion: 'No Way To Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens

kgeist 4y ago

The most egregious pharma scam must be homeopathy. At least Vitamin B6 has some effect. Kickbacks from pharma is a very common practice in the developing country I live in, what's much worse is when doctors recommend completely bogus snake oil like Oscillococcinum. Doctors here often explain such behavior that their wage is not enough to feed family etc. so they have sponsorship from companies, but currently their wage is among the highest in the country, now it's just greed. Another thing is that we have an official, government-backed list of "vital drugs" which includes homeopathic treatments and some of the board members of the company which produces them are government officials who made the list, or their relatives. It's preying on the weak.

jeffrallen 4y ago

It's not better in Switzerland, where yesterday I was sold 35 francs of medicine that MSF could have delivered for less than a franc. The Hippocratic oath does not, apparently, apply to pharmacists, or to patient's wallets.

voidmain 4y ago

Sounds like the POTAXOR strategy [1]. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/15/fish-now-by-prescription/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/15/fish-now-by-prescripti...

mbfg 4y ago

the twitter account is deleted

mdrzn 4y ago

Twitter account was deleted? Changed name? Got kidnapped by BigP? Interesting...

natpalmer1776 4y ago

Looks like the account associated with these tweets was deleted. Here is a link to the archive.org copy of the original thread: https://web.archive.org/web/20220728040832/https://twitter.com/HankHeil/status/1552334139172454400 https://web.archive.org/web/20220728040832/https://twitter.c...