There is often a bleat from the drugs companies and their right wing lobbyists that drug prices are high in the USA compared to other countries because of the need to make profits to develop new drugs. The implication of this is that US patients are subsidizing "socialist medicine".
Now there comes a claim that reverses that. Drug prices are higher in Europe because the companies build in part of the cost of advertising in the US market.
In an interview with The Observer on Sunday Professor Sir Michael Rawlins the Chair of the England's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) made this comment:
'The other thing we have to pay for is the costs of marketing. Marketing costs generally are about twice the spend on research and development.' Advertising to patients was forbidden in Britain, but widespread in the US, and some of that marketing cost was built into European drug prices
The interview has other revealing information on why drug prices are higher than they need to be. Rawlins also had an interesting comment on illegal drugs.
WANTED: Extraterritorial location for indefinite detentions, torture of prisoners, and gigantic secret military installation. Island preferred, remoteness a plus; must be cleared of troublesome natives and provide for completely restricted access. Ideal landlord would consist of a compliant allied government willing to eat up the obvious bullshit that we're going to spew trying to explain the patently illegal actions we carry out on their territory.
Contact: D. Vader, US Naval Observatory. Seriously corrupt inquiries only.
Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where our old ally Great Britain will answer the above ad – by cravenly permitting the United States to reverse-colonize Her Majesty's empire on the island of Diego Garcia. Upon (and in the waters near to) this speck of coral in the Indian Ocean, the British and Americans have established a base/prison/human rights deprivation facility that has played a larger role in the Global War of Terror than even Guantanamo Bay – a fact to which the Brits, at least, are finally growing wise.
The usual drone of the news cycle was interrupted this week with exciting reports of fighting in and around Georgia, Georgia's so called break away state, Ossetia and Russia. Latest reports have Russian military basically attacking at will various targets in Georgia. So how did all this come about? The formal history has Georgia gaining autonomy from the break up up of the former Soviet Union with Ossetia then breaking away from Georgia and proclaiming a loyalty to Russia. There's all the questions about NATO, Georgia wishing, but so far being denied, to join. But then the USA got involved, probably as part of this so called Neo con agenda of Russian containment.
Whoever scheduled Gordon Brown’s recent visit to Israel is surely out of a job. Brown’s dreary, etiolated performance – appropriate for a political corpse – was rendered even flatter by its proximity to Barack Obama’s headline-hogging whirlwind tour of Europe and the Middle East. Despite the differences in style, however, both politicians took to the podium in Israel with a similar message: one of support for the latter’s rejectionist expansionism.
I'm not here to lay out a comprehensive military strategy. That's the job of our commanders on the ground. I can tell you what our strategic goals should be. They should be relatively modest. We shouldn't want to take over the country. We should want to get out of there as quickly as we can and help the Afghans govern themselves and provide for their own security.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that McCain's campaign team is trying to reach out to bloggers overseas, given the very poor coverage he's receiving in the MSM here. However, what trade paper PRWeek's UK edition reports is something a bit more worrying.
Michael Philip Jagger was born in Dartford, Kent on 26th July 1943. When he was 4 he met Keith Richards until they went into secondary schools and lost touch. But one day in 1960 they accidentally met on the Dartford train line and both realised that they had an interest in rock n roll combined with blues. Between 1960-1962 The Rolling Stones formed. It comprised of Mick on lead vocal and harmonica, Keith Richards on guitar, Bill Wyman on bass, Charlie Watts on drums and Brian Jones on guitar. Link
Join me below as the UK commemorates this grand event......
Their strategy may not work, but it's fun to watch. The British Labour party is in massive trouble: it is on the verge of bankruptcy. Traditionally, it was, um, a "Labour" party--financed by and supposedly working for working people, as represented by the unions. Blair's project was to gradually cut this tie, repositioning "New Labour" as something more like the US Democratic Party, moderate and funded primarily by big business.
But now Labour's fair-weather friends in business are defecting to their true home, the Conservative Party. Labour is left at risk of literally having to sell off its HQ and let go staff, having lost hundreds of thousands of members since Blair's rise to power, the Iraq war, and many, many policy decisions that have hurt working people. They are very likely to lose the next national election.
This has put the unions in an interesting position. More about what they want below the fold.
The increasing erosion of our constitutions, civil rights and democracies as they are being gradually subjugated by Authoritarian Security Surveillance States. The bloating no-fly lists and terrorist watch-lists. The continuing inhumane and barbaric renditions, "enhanced interrogations" and indefinite detentions - of children, teenagers and adults alike. The continuing standing of Military Commissions, which are nothing more than politically-driven, rigged, kangaroo courts. The seemingly unending wars of choice and occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq - both based on lies to justify a vengeance operation for 9/11 and the securing of foreign oil resources. The ever mounting toll of civilian deaths, displaced refugees and soldier casualties.
This is the overall state of things today with regards to our so-called "Western civilization" - especially with regards to the U.S.A., the U.K. and Canada.
A UN report (.pdf) published last week concludes that the wall Israel is constructing in the occupied West Bank is creating severe "geographical and bureaucratic hardships for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians", "preventing and delaying Palestinians from accessing essential services and workplaces". Entire communities have been devastated. The densely populated Jerusalem neighbourhood of al-Ram is a typical example: since the annexation wall severed it from the rest of Jerusalem a third of businesses and "vast numbers" of residents have left, turning a once thriving area into "a virtual ghost town".
The skinny on Senator Obama's foreign travel is not very encouraging . The itinerary is not well thought out and the inclination to do a big public speech in Berlin is politically inept - Americans like their presidents to be loved by foreigners but they want their presidential candidates to show that they will work exclusively on behalf of the American people.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and the UK are pretty much givens. Senator Obama needs to meet with the commanders and the troops and establish himself with government leaders in Kabul and Baghdad (and why not Kirkuk and Basra). We are at war and while it is risky (Dukakis+tank+helmet+MSM man crush on McSame), Obama has to show that he will be comfortable and competent as Commander in Chief from day one.
Israel, being an ally under constant attack, is a must (with visits to VadYeshem but also perhaps with visits to PeaceNow or Reform Jewish sites) as is the UK as our most solid military ally and linguistic mother country. But why France and Germany? And why not Italy, Ireland, Poland and possibly Bosnia? More below the fold Report on Itinerary
According to the Guardian, this herbicide marketed by Dow AgroSciences as Forefront, among other names, has entered the food chain.
It appears that the contamination came from grass treated 12 months ago. Experts say the grass was probably made into silage, then fed to cattle during the winter months. The herbicide remained present in the silage, passed through the animal and into manure that was later sold. Horses fed on hay that had been treated could also be a channel.
The manure was sold to gardeners all over the UK resulting in withered or "grossly deformed" potatoes, beans, peas, carrots and salad vegetables. Never come between the English and their gardens.
It would seem that our democracies in Canada and the U.S.A. are not the only ones ailing - especially with regards to the increasing - and successful - assaults on our privacy and civil liberties ... all in the name of the false God of Security.
Indeed - things are not looking so good either in the U.K. Case in point with the following article (and I invite you good folks to rejoin me below after reading it):
At one minute past midnight on July 5, 1948 Aneira Thomas was born in Amman Valley Hospital, Carmarthenshire, Wales. Her mother Edna had been in labor for 18 hours and had gone into hospital expecting to pay one shilling and sixpence (£.075) in midwifery fees. A small amount but significant for the family finances. Her father earned £2 a week as a coal miner and in post war Britain money was tight.
Aneira's family did not have to pay those fees. She was the first baby to be born under the National Health Service scheme which promised healthcare free at the point of need, "from cradle to grave". Aneira would go on to become a nurse in the health service she was born with and both are still going strong. Earlier this week Aneira was in a Swansea hospital handing out "Born in Wales" baby bibs to new mothers.
A lot has changed in the last 60 years, not the least the political discussion. The Conservatives considered scrapping the tax funded system when they returned to office in 1951. Today the discussion is not if, but how to deliver the best service possible.
I know this is talked about all the time as it relates to climate change, the war in Iraq, you name it. I want to come at it from a different angle.
Over the course of the last year or so I have become 110% addicted to BBC America. One of the best shows is Top Gear. Think three guys getting to drive the world's fastest and most expensive cars and then talking about them.
But in a few shows the three hosts are given a small sum of money to buy a junker and then complete nearly impossible tasks.
They came to the US for the first time. They started in Miami and had only $1,000 to buy a used car and drive to New Orleans. When they got to New Orleans it got interesting, and I don't mean in a good way.
First off, I'm not American. I've lived in the UK my whole life, but nonetheless I'm an avid follower of American politics and I've been watching this election, via my computer, very closely since mid-2007. I'll admit that at first I was rooting for Hillary, but somewhere during the primaries I realised the game was up for her and I started to see everything Obama could have to offer once he took the White House.
I heard this story on the BBC's World Service this morning:
MPs are calling for an advert showing two men kissing to be reinstated after it was pulled following complaints. More than two decades after the first gay kiss on teatime TV, a kiss is clearly not always just a kiss.
Twenty-one years after Britain's first gay kiss on primetime TV prompted condemnation from MPs, a show of intimacy between two men clearly still has the capacity to shock television audiences.
Heinz has withdrawn an advert for its Deli Mayo brand one week into a five-week schedule. It depicts a man with a New York accent and dressed like a chef, making sandwiches in a homely British family kitchen. After a schoolboy and girl - who refer to the wise-cracking chef as "Mum" - dash through to pick up their sandwiches, their harried father appears, seemingly late for work.
