Large pharmaceutical industries are making big profits on medications because they charge high prices for profit. These pharmaceutical companies are overcharging for medications that are essential to maintaining the health of patients. Having such a high cost for medication prevents patients from receiving the care that they need. This may result in patients resorting to desperate measure such as stealing and other illegal acts. The pharmaceutical industry need to reevaluate their ethical standards because the way that these companies are going about pricing their drugs is preventing patients from living a health life. These profits come at an expense of people who depend on those medications to maintain a quality of life. It is not ethical …show more content…
For years, the price of drugs have been held in congress because the cost of pharmaceutical drugs is the most controversial aspect of this industry. Stuart Schweitzer, a professor of health policy and management at the University of California Los Angeles, author of Pharmaceutical Economics and Policy, comments on this topic. According to Schweitzer, consumers are more sensitive to drug prices more than the price other health services. Schweitzer states, “Consumers are more likely to complain about a $50 bottle of tablets than a $500 radiology procedure, or a $5000 hospital stay”. This may be due the fact that these procedure and hospital stays are less frequent than taking prescription medication that is needed continuous. Most patients are seeing multiple doctors and nurses, that is accounting for the cost. Whereas at a pharmacy, they only see the pharmacist for a consultation and then the patient goes home to take their medication. Consumers may expect this to be cheaper because they are not receiving extensive care. To bring a new drug onto the market in the 1990s, it costed $359 million compared to $1.7 billion in 2003. Pricing of most products is usually based on marginal cost, which is the change in the total cost that comes from producing one extra item. However, this is not the case with the pharmaceutical industry because if prices were based on marginal cost, drugs would be a lot more
Abramsons points are well taken, and it truly is a shame that the medical industry has become a business. In my opinion, if the pharmaceutical industry was taken out of the hands of the capitalist marketplace and given the to the government, it would become less of a business. Prescription drugs are not ordinary consumer goods; they are products that can ultimately save lives. If a money-oriented company controls these products, it is inevitable selling the drug would become a greater priority than actually creating a beneficial drug. Which as a result, will to the creation many well-marketed yet ineffective
"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system are not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in order to cure their ailments. For instance, they may present symptoms that are perfectly harmless, and lead potential citizens to believe that, because of these symptoms, they are "sick" and in need of medication. In some instances, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States misleads both the public and medical professionals by participating in acts of both deceptive marketing practices and bribery, and therefore does not act within the best interests of the consumers.
Doctors work under intense pressure, and if a pill could fix a patient’s problems than many saw nothing wrong with that. What exacerbated the problem was that many hospitals also changed their modus operandi with regards to treatment. In some hospitals, “doctors were told they could be sued if they did not treat pain aggressively, which meant with opiates (95). However once the patient became addicted and could no longer get their prescription legally refilled, the drug dealers saw their chance. What is surprising is the fact that pharmaceutical companies acted in the same manner as drug dealers. Both sides did not care about the end user, and the problems they would have to deal with after using what was given to them. Their motive was purely to profit as much as possible, and they did not care about who would get hurt as a result of their
Yu, Winnie and Joel Hay. 1999. “Drug Patents and Prices: Can we Achieve Better Outcomes?” Measuring the Prices of Medical Treatments. Pages 27-28.
LEADERSHIP BRIEFING PAPER Leadership Briefing Paper After spending your entire working life in one giant corporation that went down overnight; investing most of your retirement in stock options that plummet to zero; you are suddenly jobless and your retirement money is gone. Yet, perhaps even more threatening; our skilled and managerial jobs are steadily going abroad, due to poor corporate ethics. The crisis of poor ethics has jeopardized public trust, caused an erosion of organizational cultures, created human suffering, caused unemployment, and profit losses. Poor ethics
It is said that name-brand prescription drugs in Canada cost approximately 40% less than they do in America. But it is illegal for the transport of drugs from Canada to America. Why? It is because Pharmaceuticals are simply greedy and prey on victims that are in need of their products to survive. It makes it hard for large households on a budget to purchase drugs to keep healthy. The way pharmaceutical companies look at their clients is like this: It is a life or death situation for them so the customers have to buy it in order to survive. According to the annual Fortune 500 survey, the pharmaceutical industry, expectedly, made it at the top of the list of the most profitable. The top seven pharmaceutical companies took in more profit-money than the top seven media companies, the top seven airline companies, the top seven oil companies, and the top seven car manufacture companies. (…cost so much, CNN) The profits of pharmaceutical companies are outrageous and extreme. There are many reasons to why these companies are greedily taking advantage of customers. The number one reason is because people who are need of these prescriptions have no other choice but to purchase them.
Has anyone noticed that there seems to be a drugstore being built on every corner these days? Revco, Walgreens, and Rite Aid seem to be just a few of the drug store chains that are expanding. One has to wonder if this has anything to do with the possibility of including medicine under coverage by healthcare systems. This means that they may become part of a capitated payment system to the pharmaceutical providers. "By capitation, we mean a prospective payment to physicians or providers - either individually or as a group - of a fixed amount of money to care for each patient (Pearson, 1998)." In other words, every physician is provided a set sum of money whether they see any patients or not and every pharmacy would be given money whether they prescribe any drugs or not. Drug costs will rise.
Why are the prices so high? Some critics of the drug companies argue that the larger firms are ripping off the American public, are dishonest and, in some cases, unsafe. On the other hand, there are health care workers such as doctors and their supporters who claim that research and testing for drugs costs money. This supposedly justifies their prices for their products. Also, as an argument to their side, they say that their practice is a benefit to the improvement to mankind. It is a life saving business, but are these prices justified? As one can see, this is a very important issue in medicine today. It affects everyone involved with medicine, which is much of the American public. It also affects the physicians and drug makers.
The word ethics is derived from the Greek word ‘ethos’ meaning character or conduct. It is typically used interchangeably with word moral which is derived from the Latin word ‘moves’ which means customs or habits. Ethics refers to conduct, character and motivations involved in moral acts. Ethics are not imposed by a profession, by law but by moral obligation. It is unwritten code of conduct that encompasses both professional conduct and judgement. Ethics helps support autonomy and self-determination, protect the vulnerable and promotes the welfare and equality of human beings. An ethical dentist- patient relationship is based on trust, honesty, confidentiality, privacy and the quality of care.1
Even with health care coverage being at the tips of our finger, we still are positioned with the question how will I pay for this, as well as where this money comes from. Reports have indicated that the United States has spent “$2.2 trillion for health care in 2007, which was an increase of 6.7% from $2.1 trillion in 2006” (Wexler). This revenue comes to all of our taxable expenses, which in turn trickles down to the Affordable Care Act. Receiving any medical care, is expensive in general, from staffing of the hospitals to creating the medication that someone needs to further their lives. Wexler addresses the increase of medication production. ” One of the fastest-growing components of health care is the market for prescription drugs. In 2006 Americans spent $216.7 billion on prescription medication—this was an 8.5% increase from $199.7 billion in 2005” (Wexler) The increase can be a good way to think of how the money is spent. We fund the projects that in turn create fundamental medications to help those who need
There are three issues when it comes to the health care cost rising. The first is the rising cost in prescription drugs. The second area of rising cost is the increased technologies when it comes to the medical industry. The third problem is the aging population. Prescription drugs are the area of the fastest growing health care expense, and it is projected to grow at 20 to 30 percent each year over the next several years. There are many newer, more expensive drugs on the market, and the use of these prescriptions is exploding. In addition, with so much television advertising, many consumers ask their doctors for expensive, brand name drugs when there may actually be a generic drug that works just as well.
In recent years’ health reform has been a driving force in the United States political system. If you watch the news, you will understand how citizens, the government, or the economy are or might be affected by some sort of change in medical regulation. One of these hot topic issues is the cost of prescription drugs. Every major drug market besides the United States regulates the price of drugs in some way (Abbott and Vernon). By the United States not doing so, many believe it opens consumers up to being exploited by large pharmaceutical companies.
Merck was one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Merck was about to lose patent protection of two of its best selling drugs, which had been a significant part of their $2 billion annual sales. Merck began putting millions of dollars into research (up to $1 billion) and within three years, Merck was able to discover four powerful medications. Profits weren’t all that Merck cared about; Merck’s founder believed that "medicine is for people. It is not for the profits." • He also believed that following the “medicine is for people” philosophy would lead to profits and had yet to fail.• River Blindness is caused by parasitic worms, which can be found in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.• These places are developing, so many citizens are poor. • The worm larvae can enter the body through fly bites, with some people getting thousands a day. • Worms can cause grotesque growths, but the major problem lies in reproduction when millions of progeny are released in the system. •The resulting itching is so intense the infected have committed suicide. • Eventually, the larvae may cause blindness. • Two existing drugs could kill the parasite, but have serious, potentially fatal, side effects. • The only safe combative measure available was insecticides that eventually lose potency with immunity of the flies. • The average drug takes $200 million in research and 12 years time to produce. • In order for companies to stay in business (and ease human pain), they must make complex decisions about which drugs offer the most promise. • Investing time/money into drugs for rare diseases is risky (because the pool of recipients is small). • There are enough people with river blindness ...
As I pursue my career in the nursing field, there are many safe practices I will incorporate each day to ensure safe medication administration to my patients. Although it may sound intimidating to administer such potent drugs, many methods prove to provide safety while doing so. Moving on, a nurse must always think ethically correct when considering safe medication administration. Lastly, I will discuss various aspects that enhance or impede medication safety and nursing care. In order to keep my patient’s safe, I will need to ensure that I practice safe medication administration.
Many laws have been put into place to make sure corporations act ethically, so they do not harm people or the environment. Corporations have a social responsibility to follow these laws and various other ethical actions; Johnson & Johnson, considered to be one of the most admirable companies according to Fortune, is one company that included their corporate social responsibilities in their code of ethics. Their code of ethics states that executive officers cannot financially benefit from unethical transactions or that their management must be competent and ethical (Code of Business Conduct, 2015). It is important for corporations to act ethically and hold up to their social responsibility, especially within the workplace; ethics are especially