Placing excise taxes on vices to finance people's well-being is a morally valid choice, therefore the proposal of some scientific societies to increase the price of a pack of cigarettes by one euro to set up a fund intended to cover the high costs of the latest generation of anticancer drugs would not make sense. Moreover, the Government has already filed a proposal for funds for so-called innovative drugs in the Budget Committee.
But the question that arises is: why must these drugs continue to be so expensive when a very large quantity of them are sold in the world, pathologies have increased, research costs have largely recovered and the shareholders of pharmaceutical companies continue to increase profits by having patents and a monopoly? The pharmaceutical industries set the price and the drug agencies on duty undergo their conditioning. And of course this does not only apply to oncologicals but also to antivirals and all other types.
And then: allocating funds for these medicines will only continue to "fatten" the pharmaceutical companies whose only interest is to continue to guarantee themselves large profit margins.
The proposals of oncologists to be prudent in prescriptions are right, it is right to group the patients so as not to waste the residues of the vials, it is right to evaluate the costs and benefits, but are we sure that once all this is done the problem will be solved?
Certainly not, the money will not be enough, the patients will continue to need them, the oncologists will continue to struggle with reports, special registers for the collection and verification of cases that are really in need.
If prices are not reduced, the problem will not be solved. And it cannot be said that it is not possible given the very high earnings of the industry. It's time to stop making efforts downstream: it's upstream that we need to make an impact. Stop at impossible prices.
So the way is another: a mobilization of patient associations and oncologists is urgently needed to put pressure on government bodies why they impose a reduction in prices on companies, under penalty of boycotting their activities and increasing taxation. It is necessary to denounce the transversal lobbies at the parliamentary level, the cartel of European scientific societies, stigmatize and denounce the speculations of the industry and push the various governments to a single negotiation.
Because extreme evils can only be answered with extreme remedies.
by Alberto Scanni – 03/16/2016 – Vita.it
Alberto Scanni, president emeritus of the Italian College of leading hospital medical oncologists - CIPOMO, appeals to patient associations and the government for a mobilization that "denounces the transversal lobbies and speculations of the pharmaceutical industry"
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