The Tooth Fairy and the Drugs

Big Pharma paid a fortune to support Prop 78 in last Tuesday’s California special election. That was the proposal that offered voluntary discounts for low-income people based on the pharmaceutical company’s guidelines. Senator Boxer opposed this measure, along with most thinking people in the state and elsewhere—they supported an alternative Proposition 79, that would have forced the drug companies to lower their prices.

Both measures were voted down, mostly due to the confusion of the ads and a lack of understanding of which proposition meant what. People who have a life don’t follow this stuff that closely. They don't care or understand how the cost of their prescriptions may be affected by this vote in this election, on which California taxpayers paid $400 million because the governor, Arnold Schwartzenneger, wouldn't take "no" for an answer on several issues which he then submitted for referendum by the electorate. It was his choice and prerogative alone.

Just imagine what $400 million could have done for the people of California besides fund a special election: teacher salaries, homeless people's supplies, scholarships for deserving students--the list is endless.

Back to the expensive medicine and the greedy pharmaceutical firms:

After tens of millions of dollars spent by the big drug manufacturers on Proposition 78, which was voted DOWN, how do you think these drug company execs felt? Shitty?--no! Ecstatic?--Beyond description!

...drug executives are "dancing in the boardrooms" despite the defeat of their own measure, said Bob Stern, executive director of the Santa Monica-based Center for Governmental Studies. "They don't care that 78 went down…. They really wanted 79 to lose."--Drug Industry Wins Despite Defeat, Some Say, By Lisa Girion, Los Angeles Times, 11/10/05

Why were they happy their $80 million plus campaign failed?

With most states eyeing measures to make drugs more affordable, political and financial analysts viewed the election as a key test of the industry's ability to fend off mandatory discounts.-- Drug Industry Wins Despite Defeat, Some Say, By Lisa Girion, Los Angeles Times, 11/10/05

You still think the drug companies are more interested in your longer lifespan than they are in their shareholders’ profits? You must think there’s a real tooth fairy. Well, just ask your kids—there ain’t and they aren’t!