P.S. Don't believe drug companies when they blame high prices on "research & development." Most large drug companies only spend about 10-20% of their revenue on research.

Read the article for more. 5/🧵

yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/your-top-1...

He's essentially asking drug companies to match other countries' prices with no consequences if they don't. The reason other countries have lower prices is because they have universal health care, allowing the government to choose not to cover a drug if the manufacturer refuses to negotiate. 4/🧵

Drug lobbyists spend millions of dollars to block laws that might limit their profits, including any kind of reform that would lower drug costs.

Additionally, Trump's executive order is unlikely to fix things because there is no mechanism of enforcement. 3/🧵

Patents on new medications prevent other drug companies from creating generics for 12-14 years on average, and drug companies are often able to renew patents by "re-releasing" the drug with minor improvements. 2/🧵

Why were people so angry about it?

This type of thinking along with RFK's suggestions that chronically ill and autistic people cannot be contributing members to society is eerily, and dangerously similar. 🧵4

When Hitler started euthanizing people, he started with the disabled, but first he spread messaging to make citizens feel less sympathetic toward them. 🧵3

This is an ignorant and dangerous mischaracterization, and only a hop, skip and a jump away from insinuating that people who become sick, or are chronically ill, brought it on themselves. 🧵2