4 ms·

Good luck with the ambulance chasing lawyers in the US. Also, India's drugs are cheaper.

by vaadu 13y ago

mschuster91 13y ago
Ambulance chasing lawyers? You mean, there exist lawyers who race behind ambulances just to get a mandate from the injured for suing the hospital for any and all possible malpractice? Edit: No need for downvoting. This behaviour even has a Wikipedia article. I am ashamed living on a planet where such things occur.
- philwelch 13y ago
  It's just an expression. Lawyers don't literally chase ambulances. It's illegal for lawyers to accost people in the emergency room offering their services, and it's probably illegal to literally chase an ambulance as well due to traffic laws. The story has more to do with suing someone for the personal injury that landed the patient in the hospital in the first place, but it's meant to refer to lawyers going out of their way to recruit clients who might not have even wanted to file suit in the first place, or to unethical, enterprising lawyers in general.
  - nairteashop 13y ago
    One of my buddies in LA got involved a multi-car accident. Within minutes he had a lawyer stop by his car and drop off his business card in case he could be "of assistance". So yeah, "ambulance chaser" an expression, but sadly very close to reality in some cases...
toomuchtodo 13y ago
Why are India's drugs cheaper? Is their patent system different than in the US? Or does the government dictate the price drugs can be sold at?
- mschuster91 13y ago
  Basically, the Indian government doesn't give a sh#t about the methods that US pharma companies are using to generate more revenue in the US (slightly alter the compound so it's basically the same stuff, and then patent the new stuff).
- greesil 13y ago
  what patents?
  - fakeer 13y ago
    If you are referring to now-a-days somewhat popular belief that India doesn't respect patents or has no patent system then I am humbly requesting you to do a little bit of research and you'll find out that it's very very far from the truth. It's just that it doesn't grant a patent on A because the patent of C expired and the company decided to call it A or if rejected then applied again by calling it B. jm2c.
- nairteashop 13y ago
  It's both. The Indian supreme court recently rejected Novartis' patent on Glivec, because the formulation wasn't different enough to merit a new patent (I don't know enough to know whether that was the right decision; just pointing out that the patent situation is different). The Indian government also has pricing restrictions on ~350 drugs deemed "essential". On top of this, compared to the US, there's little to no drug marketing in India (yet). Plus lower labor/capital costs, etc.
  - ankitml 13y ago
    Not true, there are huge marketing overheads in India. Drug Marketing in India is much more hidden, companies shower huge gifts and money to doctors to prescribe their drug. SO essentially companies cannot publicly declare this as marketing budget.
jcnnghm 13y ago
Of course their drugs are cheaper, if drugs companies won't sell to them at huge discounts, India ignores the patents and produces the drugs themselves. Consequently, the US subsidizes their drugs, insofar as they do not contribute to the costs of R&D, including research and clinical trials for working and failed drugs. If every country adopts that policy, which is the direction things are headed because it's the dominant strategy, the rate of medical advancement will be much lower. To quantify, about 58% of US medical funding is provided by private industry. Pharmaceuticals alone spend more than the NIH. NIH in the US spends 29 times more than NHS in the UK on health research, despite having only 6 times more people. The US spends 4 times more per capita than Australia on medical research. This is one of the two gigantic elephants in the healthcare debate auditorium, the other being patient outcomes for comparable patients. Of course US aggregate data is skewed because of the general health of the population (fatness), and those without insurance, but what happens when comparing patient outcomes between people with insurance in the US, with people that are comparably healthy (i.e. fatness and related issues) in other countries. The whole thing is basically a health-and-wealth transfer scheme from the insured to the uninsured. We see basically the same thing whenever space research is discussed. Pompous Europeans bash US progress and "meager space funding", while the US outspends the entire world combined over 3 to 1 on space research. In the end, the "solution" to both is to cut spending to both medical and space research to global per-capita levels, and let the advanced research go undone, unless other countries choose to start contributing. Of course, that would be a true tragedy of the commons.
- mschuster91 13y ago
  Well, but the majority of new US medicine is just modified versions of old substances.
  - jcnnghm 13y ago
    Once the old substances patent expires, any drug company can produce generics. There is no incentive to ignore patents and produce generics if the patent is expired because other companies will likely be producing generics, assuming there is actually a market for the drug.

Good luck with the ambulance chasing lawyers in the US. Also, India's drugs are cheaper.

by vaadu 13y ago

Good luck with the ambulance chasing lawyers in the US. Also, India's drugs are cheaper.

Ambulance chasing lawyers? You mean, there exist lawyers who race behind ambulances just to get a mandate from the injured for suing the hospital for any and all possible malpractice? Edit: No need for downvoting. This behaviour even has a Wikipedia article. I am ashamed living on a planet where such things occur.

philwelch 13y ago
It's just an expression. Lawyers don't literally chase ambulances. It's illegal for lawyers to accost people in the emergency room offering their services, and it's probably illegal to literally chase an ambulance as well due to traffic laws. The story has more to do with suing someone for the personal injury that landed the patient in the hospital in the first place, but it's meant to refer to lawyers going out of their way to recruit clients who might not have even wanted to file suit in the first place, or to unethical, enterprising lawyers in general.
- nairteashop 13y ago
  One of my buddies in LA got involved a multi-car accident. Within minutes he had a lawyer stop by his car and drop off his business card in case he could be "of assistance". So yeah, "ambulance chaser" an expression, but sadly very close to reality in some cases...

toomuchtodo 13y ago

Why are India's drugs cheaper? Is their patent system different than in the US? Or does the government dictate the price drugs can be sold at?

mschuster91 13y ago
Basically, the Indian government doesn't give a sh#t about the methods that US pharma companies are using to generate more revenue in the US (slightly alter the compound so it's basically the same stuff, and then patent the new stuff).
greesil 13y ago
what patents?
- fakeer 13y ago
  If you are referring to now-a-days somewhat popular belief that India doesn't respect patents or has no patent system then I am humbly requesting you to do a little bit of research and you'll find out that it's very very far from the truth. It's just that it doesn't grant a patent on A because the patent of C expired and the company decided to call it A or if rejected then applied again by calling it B. jm2c.
nairteashop 13y ago
It's both. The Indian supreme court recently rejected Novartis' patent on Glivec, because the formulation wasn't different enough to merit a new patent (I don't know enough to know whether that was the right decision; just pointing out that the patent situation is different). The Indian government also has pricing restrictions on ~350 drugs deemed "essential". On top of this, compared to the US, there's little to no drug marketing in India (yet). Plus lower labor/capital costs, etc.
- ankitml 13y ago
  Not true, there are huge marketing overheads in India. Drug Marketing in India is much more hidden, companies shower huge gifts and money to doctors to prescribe their drug. SO essentially companies cannot publicly declare this as marketing budget.

jcnnghm 13y ago

Of course their drugs are cheaper, if drugs companies won't sell to them at huge discounts, India ignores the patents and produces the drugs themselves. Consequently, the US subsidizes their drugs, insofar as they do not contribute to the costs of R&D, including research and clinical trials for working and failed drugs. If every country adopts that policy, which is the direction things are headed because it's the dominant strategy, the rate of medical advancement will be much lower. To quantify, about 58% of US medical funding is provided by private industry. Pharmaceuticals alone spend more than the NIH. NIH in the US spends 29 times more than NHS in the UK on health research, despite having only 6 times more people. The US spends 4 times more per capita than Australia on medical research. This is one of the two gigantic elephants in the healthcare debate auditorium, the other being patient outcomes for comparable patients. Of course US aggregate data is skewed because of the general health of the population (fatness), and those without insurance, but what happens when comparing patient outcomes between people with insurance in the US, with people that are comparably healthy (i.e. fatness and related issues) in other countries. The whole thing is basically a health-and-wealth transfer scheme from the insured to the uninsured. We see basically the same thing whenever space research is discussed. Pompous Europeans bash US progress and "meager space funding", while the US outspends the entire world combined over 3 to 1 on space research. In the end, the "solution" to both is to cut spending to both medical and space research to global per-capita levels, and let the advanced research go undone, unless other countries choose to start contributing. Of course, that would be a true tragedy of the commons.

mschuster91 13y ago
Well, but the majority of new US medicine is just modified versions of old substances.
- jcnnghm 13y ago
  Once the old substances patent expires, any drug company can produce generics. There is no incentive to ignore patents and produce generics if the patent is expired because other companies will likely be producing generics, assuming there is actually a market for the drug.