Texas mom dies from flu because the Meds have Ridiculously inflated prices in the USA

Texas mother of two died Sunday from flu complications after reportedly deciding that the $116 medication to treat the virus was too costly.

Heather Holland, a second-grade teacher at Ikard Elementary School in Weatherford, Texas, died following complications of flu, leaving behind her husband Frank Holland and two children, a daughter, 10, and a son, 7.

She reportedly started to feel sick a week ago and was going to pick up flu medication. Her husband said she decided not to purchase the medication because she thought the $116 price tag was too high, according to the Weatherford Democrat.

“She wouldn't go get medicine because she's a mama. Mamas are tough. She just kept going. She had a job; she had kids," Holland's pastor, Clark Bosher, told Fox 4. "I think any mom does that. I don't think she is being irresponsible. I don't think she thought she was that sick. It happened so quick."

The husband picked up the drugs himself on Thursday after finding out she skipped on them, but it was too late and she ended up in the intensive care unit at a hospital on Friday.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/texas-mom-dies-from-flu-after-skipping-on-meds-deemed-too-costly-report/ar-BBJ37Hy?li=AAgfLCP&ocid=ientp



“Friday night, things escalated and she ended up in the ICU,” he told the outlet. "The doctors got the blood cultures back and they had to put her on dialysis early Saturday.”

She died Sunday morning. “I have to be strong for the kids but it’s still surreal, it hasn’t all set in,” Frank Holland said. “We’ve been together a long time, over half my life. She’s my best friend, my soulmate, my everything.”

He described her as a passionate teacher who “loved helping people, helping the kids, and the kids loved her.” On the school’s website page, Heather Holland wrote: “I am really enjoying my kiddos. We are working hard on reading, writing and learning to quickly compose and decompose numbers.”

This season’s deadly flu season has reportedly taken the lives of hundreds of Americans across the country.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acting Director Dr. Anne Schuchat said the center has seen “increased influenza-like activity, more hospitalizations and tragically, more flu-associated deaths in children and adults.”

Over 60 children have died from the virus this season and there are no signs the spread of the flu will soon to cease. The state of Louisiana, is on track to having some 1,000 flu-related deaths this season, according to medical officials.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:I don't think Quill understands how much money it costs to get a drug approved by the FDA. That money has to be recouped somehow. The dirty little secret around the globe is it's often on the back of the American consumer because other countries negotiate the price down and the pharmaceuticals just transfer the cost to us.

The cost of qualification of a drug is negligible compared to the profits made.  The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) of the FDA is responsible for certification of new drugs as safe and effective.  To certify a new drug, a new drug application (NDA) is submitted.  https://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/01/03/the-drug-development-process-9-steps-from-the-labo.aspx  The tests for safety and effectiveness are as varied as the human body meant to be treated, multiplied by periodic table.  The costs can be in the millions.

The main expense is failure.  The reality is that the pharmaceutical business is in the grip of rising failure rates and rising costs.   Each failure sends the designer back to the drawing board, adding to the expense.  So many, if not most of those tests are borne by the universities and institutions developing them.

The Pharmas wait for more promising results.  But because the Pharmas ‘buy into’ the product, they inherit the numbers spent to develop a drug, including the cost of failures, when they create the partnership; after all, one of the partners spent money on all those failures, just not the Pharma.  Thus they inflate the amount that is spent to bring the drug to market.

A venture capitalist has economic principles of his own.  When to invest, how much to invest and how to divvy the return are all elements in the art form.  A Pharma has developed the PR to a fine point: stand tall on the outgoing, hunch down on the incoming.  Play up the great humanitarian service you are performing; use the numbers invested by the institutions to inflate the cost of R&D; sell the product at an astronomical figure; shrug your shoulders if they don’t buy.

With a normal product, the logic works…people will not buy, or they will purchase a substitute product as an alternative.  But with pharmaceuticals, the options narrow: the only alternative is sickness or death, as we see in the OP article.  It’s a ghastly form of monopoly.  That's why I say it's unconscionable to include medicine and healthcare in the capitalist game.

Raggamuffin wrote:There are alternatives to Tamiflu though. Also, we still don't know if the Tamiflu would have made a difference, or if it even contributed to her death. She had a massive immune reaction to the virus, so it's not clear that Tamiflu would have made a difference.

Original Quill wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:There are alternatives to Tamiflu though. Also, we still don't know if the Tamiflu would have made a difference, or if it even contributed to her death. She had a massive immune reaction to the virus, so it's not clear that Tamiflu would have made a difference.

If Tamiflu affects health in any way, it becomes a gamble with health and life.  It's not the normal market game: take it or leave it.  It's like putting a gun to someone's head, and saying 'pay me or I'll shoot'--take it or leave it.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

If Tamiflu affects health in any way, it becomes a gamble with health and life.  It's not the normal market game: take it or leave it.  It's like putting a gun to someone's head, and saying 'pay me or I'll shoot'--take it or leave it.

It can affect health in negative ways too, and its efficacy always seems to be under review. It's said that it reduces the flu by about a day, and it's not clear if it prevents hospitalisations or complications. The problem is that one never knows how a patient would be without Tamiflu.

There are alternatives too, which may be cheaper.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

If Tamiflu affects health in any way, it becomes a gamble with health and life.  It's not the normal market game: take it or leave it.  It's like putting a gun to someone's head, and saying 'pay me or I'll shoot'--take it or leave it.

It can affect health in negative ways too, and its efficacy always seems to be under review. It's said that it reduces the flu by about a day, and it's not clear if it prevents hospitalisations or complications. The problem is that one never knows how a patient would be without Tamiflu.

There are alternatives too, which may be cheaper.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:There are alternatives to Tamiflu though. Also, we still don't know if the Tamiflu would have made a difference, or if it even contributed to her death. She had a massive immune reaction to the virus, so it's not clear that Tamiflu would have made a difference.

If Tamiflu affects health in any way, it becomes a gamble with health and life.  It's not the normal market game: take it or leave it.  It's like putting a gun to someone's head, and saying 'pay me or I'll shoot'--take it or leave it.

It can affect health in negative ways too, and its efficacy always seems to be under review. It's said that it reduces the flu by about a day, and it's not clear if it prevents hospitalisations or complications. The problem is that one never knows how a patient would be without Tamiflu.

There are alternatives too, which may be cheaper.

Maddog wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

It can affect health in negative ways too, and its efficacy always seems to be under review. It's said that it reduces the flu by about a day, and it's not clear if it prevents hospitalisations or complications. The problem is that one never knows how a patient would be without Tamiflu.

There are alternatives too, which may be cheaper.

And, it's useless after you have had the flu about 24 hours. That's why people often don't mess with it.

But heaven forbid people with an agenda allow the death of a poor woman to go without using it to spread their message.

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Maddog wrote:

And, it's useless after you have had the flu about 24 hours. That's why people often don't mess with it.

But heaven forbid people with an agenda allow the death of a poor woman to go without using it to spread their message.

Agendas  ???

You mean like your agenda that big greedy and usurious corporations should be able to gouge people with their grossly inflated prices..

The libertarian agenda that big drug companies should be given the liberty to rip off people big time, all in the pursuit of maximising $$profits$$..

While giving people the liberty to go and die when they can't afford those medications;  doubly so if they live on another continent altogether.

veya_victaous wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

It can affect health in negative ways too, and its efficacy always seems to be under review. It's said that it reduces the flu by about a day, and it's not clear if it prevents hospitalisations or complications. The problem is that one never knows how a patient would be without Tamiflu.

There are alternatives too, which may be cheaper.

where does it say Tamiflu?
it sounds more like she would have needed Oseltamivir or Zanamivir.

AND the alternative are the same over inflated prices in the USA.

Maddog wrote:

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:


Agendas  ???

You mean like your agenda that big greedy and usurious corporations should be able to gouge people with their grossly inflated prices..

The libertarian agenda that big drug companies should be given the liberty to rip off people big time, all in the pursuit of maximising $$profits$$..

While giving people the liberty to go and die when they can't afford those medications;  doubly so if they live on another continent altogether.

No. I mean your agenda where you use the unfortunate death death of a mother to push your political agenda.

Maddog wrote:

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:


Agendas  ???

You mean like your agenda that big greedy and usurious corporations should be able to gouge people with their grossly inflated prices..

The libertarian agenda that big drug companies should be given the liberty to rip off people big time, all in the pursuit of maximising $$profits$$..

While giving people the liberty to go and die when they can't afford those medications;  doubly so if they live on another continent altogether.

No. I mean your agenda where you use the unfortunate death death of a mother to push your political agenda.

Maddog wrote:

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Maddog wrote:

And, it's useless after you have had the flu about 24 hours. That's why people often don't mess with it.

But heaven forbid people with an agenda allow the death of a poor woman to go without using it to spread their message.

Agendas  ???

You mean like your agenda that big greedy and usurious corporations should be able to gouge people with their grossly inflated prices..

The libertarian agenda that big drug companies should be given the liberty to rip off people big time, all in the pursuit of maximising $$profits$$..

While giving people the liberty to go and die when they can't afford those medications;  doubly so if they live on another continent altogether.

No. I mean your agenda where you use the unfortunate death death of a mother to push your political agenda.

Original Quill wrote:

Maddog wrote:

No. I mean your agenda where you use the unfortunate death death of a mother to push your political agenda.

Well, there are good agendas and there are bad agendas.  I like the people who address the problem and come up with answers to solve it.  Healthcare and pharmaceuticals should not be distributed through the free market.  We don't do that with police, the military, or fire departments.  

Why do it with this threat (healthcare and medicines) to peace and happiness?

Cass wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Well, there are good agendas and there are bad agendas.  I like the people who address the problem and come up with answers to solve it.  Healthcare and pharmaceuticals should not be distributed through the free market.  We don't do that with police, the military, or fire departments.  

Why do it with this threat (healthcare and medicines) to peace and happiness?

Because someone, somewhere always has to make a profit. Profit leads to power, power leads to contro, control leads to profit ad infinitum.