Henry Miller joins the nationally syndicated Lars Larson Show to share updates and analysis on the Wuhan flu epidemic that started in China earlier this month. Miller also discusses the preparedness of the United States and other countries in dealing with epidemics. ...
Henry Miller shares updates about the latest news on the Wuhan flu outbreak. The first case of the new strand of flu from China was confirmed in the United States this week and the region where the coronavirus originated, near the city of Wuhan in China, has been put under quarantine. ...
Much of the progress in medicine during the past half-century has involved expensive, high-tech diagnostic tests and therapies. The trend in this direction worries health economists and politicians because it has the potential to send already high health care costs into the stratosphere. Health care spending in 2017 reached $3.5 trillion, or a whopping 17.9% of the nation’s gross domestic product, according to government statistics. However, there is an important role as well for ingenious, low-tech, less-expensive approaches to improved health...
Dr. Wayne Winegarden, director of PRI’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, breaks down recently-proposed plans in Washington and Sacramento that emphasize price caps and more government control to address prescription drug prices. He discusses the conclusions of his new study on America’s drug pricing challenge, which makes the case that system-wide reforms to improve the complex drug supply chain and increase transparency are what’s needed to lower health care costs. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXSIkIWH3X4[/embed]...
As each new year begins, the increases in the list prices of drugs are announced. And, following these announcements, the political class complains that something must be done. This year, following the price announcements, Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted “Enough is enough” while Senator Grassley emphasized that a “call to action” on drug prices is needed. Undoubtedly, there are real problems. Unfortunately, the politicians seem more interested in espousing simple talking points rather than effective actions that would simultaneously promote innovation and...
China has become the world's largest producer and exporter of "active pharmaceutical ingredients," the base components drug companies use to manufacture most of the medications we rely on. China's dominance puts both the health of Americans and our national security at risk. According to the findings of a new report from the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission, which was established by Congress in 2000, China's pharmaceutical industry "is not effectively regulated by the Chinese government" and has been responsible for a...
Biosimilars could generate savings of about $116 million in New Jersey annually—including the state’s Medicaid program and patients with commercial insurance, according to a new issue brief by the Center for Medical Economics and Innovation at the Pacific Research Institute. Nationwide, those annual savings could reach $7 billion. PRI is a San Francisco-based free-market think tank. “We broke it down so you can look at it by state total and then breakout how much is for Medicaid which is directly applicable...
Wayne Winegarden, Director for PRI's Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, discusses the many problems with drug price controls on the nationally syndicated Jim Bohannon Show. ...
Once wide coercive powers are given to government agencies…such powers cannot be effectively controlled. F.A. Hayek As part of the chorus calling for drug price controls, the New York Times editorial page has claimed that “Americans will need to accept a trade-off that other advanced nations long since come around to: Slightly fewer new drugs will come to market, in exchange for better prices on the medications that already exist”. There is not one part of this statement that is true. Worse, if the Times’...
Did you catch the story about the swarm of 25,000 bees that had to be captured and removed (by a special police unit, no less) from the Staten Island Ferry Station in New York City? After many years of media reports about honeybees and wild bees dying off, you’d think they were nearly extinct — so what were 25,000 of them doing at a ferry terminal in one of the world’s most densely populated cities? Maybe they heard that New York was...
Influenza, “the flu,” is more than a bad cold. Seasonal outbreaks yearly cause not only tremendous misery and debility but huge numbers of hospital admissions and deaths. The last flu season, which ran from October 2018 until May 2019, caused up to 42.9 million flu illnesses, up to 647,000 hospitalizations and up to 61,200 flu deaths, according to preliminary numbers from the CDC. Those figures are only slightly higher than the average over the past decade. What can we expect this year? Well,...
In September 2018, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) sent an email announcing that it would no longer cover Auryxia®. Auryxia® is an FDA approved medicine that treats iron deficiency anemia (anemia) for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) but who are not on dialysis. People with CKD have damaged kidneys that no longer filter their blood properly. Currently, 30 million people in the U.S. are living with CKD, and for these patients, anemia is common. If left untreated,...
Despite their abysmal track record, government solutions are back in vogue. Ostensibly, government’s scale, leverage, and freedom from profit will unlock potential health care savings that are beyond the reach of the private sector. At their most extreme, reforms such as “Medicare for all” call for a complete government takeover of the health care system. Proponents of single payer reforms claim that only a complete government takeover of the health care sector can eliminate the health care sector’s inefficiencies and ensure 100 percent...
Every so often, we scientists encounter something that is so misguided, so wrong-headed, so perfectly idiotic it takes our breath away. It offends us. Such an example is a docudrama film called “Modified.” Disguised as a tender, sentimental story of a Canadian woman learning over many years from her mother the value of home-grown, homemade food—a sort of culinary version of “Anne of Green Gables”—it is nothing more than an anti-social screed providing fodder for the anti-science, anti-corporate echo-chamber that...
Influenza — the flu — is more than a bad cold. Seasonal outbreaks mean not only misery but increased hospital admissions and deaths. The last flu season, from October 2018 until May 2019, caused up to 42.9 million illnesses, up to 647,000 hospitalizations and up to 61,200 deaths, according to preliminary numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those figures are slightly higher than the average over the last decade. What can we expect this year? Australia’s flu season, which...
First the good news: You no longer need to worry about mortgages, student debt, career advancement, or saving for retirement. Depending on the brand of snake oil being peddled by different environmental activists, we’re headed for a “climate apocalypse” in 10, 13, or 20 years. It is undeniable that the United States cannot control the 84 percent of energy usage that occurs outside our country. Looking at trends in coal (which accounts for about 38 percent of fuels used worldwide), led by India...
Genetic engineering has delivered monumental scientific, technological, and humanitarian achievements – from producing human insulin in bacteria and gene therapy to treat genetic diseases to increasing food security and reducing malnutrition in developing countries. But it continues to face brickbats, sometimes from unexpected directions. The most recent were directed at an extraordinarily important product that helps reduce populations of the invasive mosquito species Aedes aegypti. This non-native, introduced pest transmits viral diseases, including Zika, dengue fever, chikungunya, West Nile, and yellow fever. For most of these,...
When there’s an outbreak of deaths or illnesses from injected street drugs, do public health authorities demand diabetics and doctors stop using syringes? Of course not. Yet a host of public officials — from President Trump to Gov. Andrew Cuomo to members of the Squad — are taking just that sort of approach in responding to the spate of vaping-related illnesses and deaths around the country. Cuomo, for example, went on a tear Sunday about vaping, calling it “a burgeoning health crisis” and...
When it comes to determining value, the U.S. health care system faces unique challenges. Without a better approach, the twin goals of continued innovation and broad-based drug affordability will be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain. Value assessment models are quickly becoming the approach du jour to overcome these challenges. However, value assessment models suffer from several flaws, but perhaps most importantly, as applied, these models assume that there is one number that accurately portrays the value of a medicine to all patients. Such an...
A debate over the direction of healthcare reform is roiling the Democratic Party as it weighs whom to nominate for President in 2020. But the party does appear to have coalesced around a basic idea. “We believe that health care is a human right, and we are going to fight for a system that is based on human needs,” said progressive champion Senator Bernie Sanders at a recent campaign stop. Joe Biden’s campaign offers a similar line: “We all believe that health care...