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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SiouxPal who wrote (43846)	10/17/2005 4:23:57 PM
From: CalculatedRisk	Respond to of 362360

BIRD FLU, BIRD BRAINS, AND ECONOMISTS maxspeak.org By Dr. Dean Baker.

To: SiouxPal who wrote (43846)	10/17/2005 8:45:07 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Respond to of 362360

Interesting background on that prescription drugs email : urbanlegends.about.com Comments: Circulating since 2002, this oft-forwarded message has accumulated much unreliable data along the way, including the names of two government budget analysts who purportedly authored the text but actually didn't. The original message did not contain those names, nor did it feature a table comparing consumer drug prices to the cost of raw ingredients (a table whose accuracy and relevence is questionable, by the way, given that its origin is unknown and it doesn't take manufacturing costs into account). Even so, the email accurately conveys a general truth: individual pharmacies charge widely varying prices for generic drugs, often at markups so huge they defy justification. In the 2002 investigative report that directly inspired the message, WXYZ-TV newsman Steve Wilson found, for example, that Detroit pharmacies were jacking up the price of Fluoxetine HCL (generic Prozac) from 765 percent to more than 5,000 percent over wholesale. Though some pharmacists defended the markups as necessary, at least one admitted, in his own words, "It's not right." Investigators in other parts of the country reported similar findings. In 2003 I received a note from the true author of the email, Patty Clegg, who confirmed that she wrote it after viewing Wilson's report on TV. "I immediately sent out an email to everyone in my address book," she said. "I cannot believe how quickly and how far those emails spread." Clegg also confirmed that she had comparison-shopped for prescription drugs on Costco's Web site and found them cheaper than identical products purchased at other pharmacies. Costco isn't alone in applying a consistently lower markup to generic drugs, she hastened to add, but it takes diligence to locate retailers offering the fairest prices. "The bottom line," she wrote, "is that we each must take responsibility for our own heath care. We must do the work to make sure we are getting the most for our money. I have tried my best to get the word out to 'shop around,' and now it's up to each individual to do their own research in their own community, and to help further the information to others."