Does “Big Pharma” oppose prescribing Hydroxychloroquine because it’s a generic – that costs $14.33 for 30 tablets

Two deadly viruses and their prescription drug prices:

BIKTARVY is a complete HIV-1 treatment that combines 3 powerful medicines into 1 small pill, taken once a day with or without food.The COSTCO price for Biktarvy oral tablets (50 mg-200 mg-25 mg) is $3,202.66 for a supply of 30 tablets. Prices are for cash-paying customers only, and are not valid with insurance plans. Biktarvy is available as a brand name drug only, a generic version is not yet available.

Some 37% of 6,227 doctors across 30 countries felt the drug Hydroxychloroquine was the “most effective therapy” out of 15 options in treating coronavirus. COSTCO cash price is $14.33 for 30 tablets of this generic drug. If you have money to burn, a brand name version is available at $317.64 for the same dosage at COSTCO.

The outcry against a low cost COVID-19 treatment has begun in the United States – the country with the most expensive drugs in the world, a place where a patient spending $38,472 a year on an AIDS prescription is just big business as usual.

“Hydroxychloroquine needs months of clinical trials,” the government health brain trust maintains, despite it being safely used around the world for decades to treat various ailments.

“It could have serious side effects if administered improperly,” the American Medical Association declares, neglecting to mention that even too much aspirin at once can quickly kill you.

Hydroxychloroquine was approved for medical use in the United States in 1955. It is on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed for a health system. In 2017, it was the 128th-most-prescribed medication in the United States, with more than five million prescriptions, according to Wikipedia.

If we follow the money, we learn why supplicants of Big Pharma discredit any drug that doesn’t reap huge profits by overpricing essential drugs in our for-very-big-profits health system.

Hydroxychloroquine is cheap, easy to produce, long in use, and judged effective enough that other nations prefer it as the major treatment for coronavirus.

This drug has been prescribed in 72% of coronavirus cases in Spain, 49% in Italy, 41% in Brazil, 39% in Mexico, 28% in France, and 23% in the United States, where about 19% of physicians have already used it for high-risk patients, and 8% for the low-risk ones.

Those same top government experts, we watch on tv daily, are the same ones who were involved in fighting AIDS. That epidemic’s solutions have resulted in billions of dollars spent on incredibly costly drugs and fabulous profits for healthcare system investors..

The current efforts to denigrate low-cost solutions to the COVID-19 crisis, even include the once independent New York Times:

Ignoring Expert Opinion, Trump Again Promotes Use of Hydroxychloroquine

The president’s advocacy of the anti-malarial drug has created tensions in his administration, and fears among doctors that it could unnecessarily expose patients to risks.

Sermo CEO Peter Kirk explained:

Physicians should have more of a voice in how we deal with this pandemic and be able to quickly share information with one another and the world,” he said.

With censorship of the media and the medical community in some countries, along with biased and poorly designed studies, solutions to the pandemic are being delayed.

The survey also found that 63% of U.S. physicians believe restrictions should be lifted in six weeks or more, and that the epidemic’s peak is at least 3-4 weeks away.

In addition, the survey also reported that 83% of global physicians anticipate a second global outbreak, including 90% of U.S. doctors, but only 50% of physicians in China.

On average, U.S. coronavirus testing takes 4-5 days, while 10% of cases take longer than seven days. In China, 73% of doctors reported getting rest results back in 24 hours.

Other governments are not questioning the use of Hydroxychloroquine or waiting to use it until months or years of blind tests are completed.

Most nations have single-payer healthcare, which seeks the least expensive and most effective drugs for taxpayers. By contrast, the U.S. spends more than any other country for a fleece-the-public health system that nearly always benefits investors first, even if that impoverishes the rest of us, or ignores simple, inexpensive solutions.