Indian Tribe Joins Big PhRMA in a Lucrative Deal

PhRMA, Patents, Profits vs Patients

NY Times 1.27.19.

Ahkwesáhsne, Mohawk Nation

September 2017, Allergan transferred Restasis^® patents for the eye drug to the tribe in upstate New York near the Canadian border. Allergan paid the tribe $13.75 million up front and agreed to pay up to $15 million a year in royalties as long as the patents remained valid. At the same time, the tribe gave Allergan “the sole and exclusive right” to manufacture and market the drug in the United States for uses approved by the Food and Drug Administration.  Restasis^®  is a treatment of chronic dry eye disease, had sales of nearly $1.5 billion in 2017 — Allergan’s best seller after Botox.

In a similar ploy, AbbVie filed 247 patents for Humira, a single drug for arthritis starting in 2007.. They received over 132 patents for that drug and are blocking competition for 39 years. They have increased prices 144% since 2012.

A Mother's Story

The Catch-22 of our medical/legal system criminalizes mental illness

Jerri Clark writes “I’m an active participant in NAMI programs and have met many family members who are struggling to find intelligent help in the medical and legal systems of Washington State.

Most of the stories I hear come from other mothers.

We are struggling to rescue our children from medical and legal systems that don’t make any sense.

Our systems institute punishment when help is desperately needed. They deny access to services and then blame individuals who are severely impaired for not solving their own crises. They push people to a precarious edge and then kick them off.”

On the evening of January 10, 2019, I was fortunate to view Jerri Clark’s “Brief but Spectacular” video-essay on “Why Mental Illness ‘Should Never be a Crime’”  At its conclusion, the anchor, Judy Woodruff, herself a mother of a disabled son, was chocking back tears.

Some of you will find this video perceptive.

Jerri Clark and her son, Calvin

Caring for Dying Patients:

Visual Narratives From the Intensive Care Unit
by Ginny Bao, M.D. 
Annals of Internal Medicine, January 2019  Link.

G.B. writes, “I started this series of drawings from my desire to illustrate my experiences as a medical student in treating intensive care patients through art. Although I felt comfortable discussing all aspects of my patients' clinical care, I struggled to verbalize the unspoken ethical dilemmas permeating through every patient interaction. These thoughts lingered in my head for months until I decided to express them through color, line, and form. Creating these visual images helped me to reflect and better understand how our daily medical interventions truly impact patient care. For viewers, I hope these images facilitate more mindful ways to care for patients and their families as they face illness and death. Each drawing represents a composite of patients I have encountered."

Waiting

One of the most beautiful moments I have witnessed in the ICU was when the family and medical team chose to stop life-prolonging measures and instead chose to wait for death.

 Ginny Bao, MD, is an Internal Medicine Resident at California Pacific Medical Center. She recently completed her medical training at New York University School of Medicine, where she became interested in using visual art to capture alternative perspectives on the practice of medicine. You can view her other works at www.instagram.com/imaging.by.bao/ and contact her at ginny.bao@gmail.com

Note:  Dr. Bao's art reminds me on the work of Nova Scotia artist Robert Pope who died of Hodgkins Disease in 1992.  See C2S Blog.