ATROCIOUS big pharma price gouging of insulin:

This crying mother can’t afford the $1000 for her son’s insulin.

📌yet, it only costs pharma $5 to produce.

📌Insulin was invented 100 years ago by Fred Banting—who donated patent for $1 to make it free for all.

Let that sink in.

2) Insulin is one of the most disgusting cases of price gouging ever.

America has long taken a free market approach to pharmaceuticals.
Drug companies haggle separately over drug prices with a variety of private insurers across the country...

https://t.co/1I9JlE5Ysa
3) “Meanwhile, Medicare, the government health program for those over age 65 — it’s also the nation’s largest buyer of drugs—is barred from negotiating drug prices. That gives pharma more leverage, and it leads to the kind of price surges of EpiPens, opioid antidotes, & insulin.”
4) In 2018:
Johnson & Johnson CEO made $30M
Pfizer CEO made $28M
Merck CEO made $18M
Eli Lilly CEO made $16M
Gilead CEO made $16M

Meanwhile:

📌Americans spent $535B on Rx drugs

📌1/4 of diabetics rationed insulin to survive

📌500K Americans went bankrupt from medical bills.
5) What’s the right price patients should pay for medications? ZERO dollars, because no copay ==> more patients get their medicine ==> saves lives and saves money. Copays decrease adherence, and copays hurt patients who actually need them.
6) Yet, America has the highest rate of skipping drugs -- 1 in 6 patients!!! It’s shameful how much Americans have to skip their prescription medicine compared to other countries that pay much less and have zero copays.
https://t.co/vhhfXwrsTE
7) Not just insulin, parents of kids with allergies are forced to shell out $600 for EpiPen because it is a matter of life and death. Here is a dark story about Mylan, the EpiPen maker who pharma jacked up the price from a few $ to $600.
8) First, Mylan didn’t even invent epinephrine, which is simply our human hormone, better known as *adrenaline*, packaged into an 💉 injector (not some wild invention), invented by scientists paid by taxpayers. But big pharma gets to hold parents of kids with allergies hostage.
9) Even worse, Mylan was also recently ***criminally charged*** by Department of Justice for outright fraudulent EpiPen billing, and fined $465 million for its corruption.

https://t.co/KE90EdsQCf

More from Eric Feigl-Ding

JUST ONE PERSON—UK 🇬🇧 scientists think one immunocompromised person who cleared virus slowly & only partially wiped out an infection, leaving behind genetically-hardier viruses that rebound & learn how to survive better. That’s likely how #B117 started. 🧵 https://t.co/bMMjM8Hiuz


2) The leading hypothesis is that the new variant evolved within just one person, chronically infected with the virus for so long it was able to evolve into a new, more infectious form.

same thing happened in Boston in another immunocompromised person that was sick for 155 days.

3) What happened in Boston with one 45 year old man who was highly infectious for 155 days straight before he died... is exactly what scientists think happened in Kent, England that gave rise to #B117.


4) Doctors were shocked to find virus has evolved many different forms inside of this one immunocompromised man. 20 new mutations in one virus, akin to the #B117. This is possibly how #B1351 in South Africa 🇿🇦 and #P1 in Brazil 🇧🇷 also evolved.


5) “On its own, the appearance of a new variant in genomic databases doesn’t tell us much. “That’s just one genome amongst thousands every week. It wouldn’t necessarily stick out,” says Oliver Pybus, a professor of evolution and infectious disease at Oxford.
📍DOUBLE REINFECTIONS—wow, both PM Justin Trudeau and Biden’s HHS Secretary Becerra got *reinfected* with #COVID19–from same conference—➡️when did Becerra last get infected? May 18th 2022—not even a full month ago! Trudeau in Jan 2022. I worry it’s reinfections due to #BA5/#BA4.


2) #BA5 and #BA4 are worrisome. They are surging and they have high reinfection potential. Your past BA1/BA2 doesn’t substantially protect you from #Ba5/4


3) Excess deaths—the new #BA4 & #BA5 variants of the coronavirus are currently the **fastest growing** strains in the US & UK. ➡️They are exponentially replacing all other past strains. Learn from South Africa’s early warning signs and their excess deaths. #CovidIsNotOver #COVID


4) Is it a Paxlovid rebound for Becerra, as some are asking? Unclear—Paxlovid rebound usually only happens at day 10-14 that we know of and have data. The FDA says it’s 1-2% rebound but I counted 12% from this Pfizer graph submitted to FDA.


5) and yes, #ba5 / #BA4 are very problematic. they are 2x more resistant than even BA2 for neutralizing the virus compared to those who had breakthrough reinfections from older Omicron.

More from Finance

1/ I'm thrilled to announce the launch of my new website, a one-stop shop for all the content I'm creating.

There you'll find links to all my podcasts, the TTMYGH newsletter, and other exciting future projects.

2/ In 2020, I reignited my passion for interviewing brilliant people by launching The Grant Williams Podcast in various forms, including The End Game, The Super Terrific Happy Hour, and The Narrative Game.


3/ Starting February 1, I'm taking the bold step of moving these podcasts completely behind a paywall.

For the very affordable price of only $10 a month, listeners can gain access to the Copper Tier of
https://t.co/fxUfH8maI4, which includes all current & future podcasts.


4/ Why am I doing this? First and foremost, I aspire to create VALUABLE content. By definition, if something is priced at $0, it isn’t valuable. The time, effort and creativity that goes into these episodes is substantial. To keep doing them properly, they can no longer be free.

5/ I also strongly believe content creators should be able to make a living creating content. If everything is free, that’s not possible. I never seriously considered accepting outside sponsors – complete integrity is too critical to me.
Inflation is coming, inflation is coming!

Last month I wrote about the distinction between long-term secular inflation and shorter-term cyclical inflation

It has been clear for several months that we are in the middle of a cyclical rise in


The full thread can be reviewed here:


Today's PPI report should have been expected to surprise to the upside as the leading indicators of inflation have been screaming to the upside for months!

Here is the ISM prices paid index, cumulated into a growth rate

3/


Industrial commodity prices have also seen a major acceleration for months.

4/


So today's PPI report was in line with the leads, suggesting that we have a cyclical upturn in inflation that is * primarily concentrated in the manufacturing sector *

This is a key point.

5/

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