Dear colleagues, these days there has been a succession of articles on the GSK case and on the umpteenth decision to close a research center and make job cuts. News reports tell us about strikes, government promises and commitments and pressure exerted on pharmaceutical companies to review their positions and decisions. The photos of the workers with their flags and banners are reminiscent of the 60s and the class struggle.
Without wishing to be the pinnacle of the situation, we could well say that many of us who have been involved in the pharmaceutical sector for years had foreseen what is happening. Everything is happening according to a precise and already described script. Pharmaceutical companies, the government and institutions together with the union are playing on the shoulders of the workers in the pharmaceutical sector a game that has already been decided beforehand. No one gets involved in anything specifically, workers in the sector, whether internal or external (see isf) decrease by relieving company coffers of so-called fixed costs and the health system according to pharma-industrial bullshit takes a shot in the arm by saving on pharmaceutical expenditure linked to excessive pressure from informants. Bubbles I said and giant bubbles to boot. It is enough to read a few simple numbers to realize that it is not the total number of ISFs that determine an increase or decrease in pharmaceutical spending, but rather the foolish commercial policies of companies.
In this last period, in fact, the number of isfs has decreased drastically, from the approximately 25,000 present in 2007, we have dropped below 18,000, approaching 15,000. 10,000 isf less, according to certain nonsense, should have substantially decreased pharmaceutical expenditure and instead we discover that the same has remained stationary at the territorial level and has instead increased strongly at the hospital level. Surprise!!! But how do the so-called expenditure inducers decrease (the isfs according to some regions and pharmaceutical companies) and instead of decreasing total pharmaceutical expenditure, does it increase? How can all this be explained?
The answers to these questions should be given to the pharmaceutical companies and their management and also to the big names of the triple group that for years have thrown us as a category into the abyss.
How to call all this if not consociativism? What obscure affairs are hidden behind a massacre of the ISF that actually serves everything except what we are told and written?
Let's open our eyes, dear colleagues, we have become like disposable paper handkerchiefs from a famous brand. We try to gather courage and raise our heads. It's difficult but it remains the last thing to do after which there is the abyss
Umberto Alderisi
14.02.2010
