Mike Adams – It’s no secret that various industries increase customer pricing so the company can make a profit. That’s Economics 101. However, when prices surge so exorbitantly that the average person can barely afford an item while the company walks all the way to the bank, that’s Greed 101. Sadly, absurdly elevated prices permeate the marketplace, draining the wallets and energy of people in droves, and it particularly impacts those in need of life-saving medications.

A restaurant’s appetizer platter or some trendy bracelet charms are one thing, but when it comes to improving the quality of human lives or even saving them, people often have no choice but to pay steep prices. If you want to live, or live better, you’ll need to either win the lottery or have saved your pennies since childhood. It’s not fair, but it’s a shocking reality.

An eye-opening look at how we’re being ripped off by drug companies

Look at the numbers:

Almost overnight, Turing Pharmaceuticals raised the price for Daraprim, a treatment that fights life-threatening parasitic infections from $13.50 per pill to a whopping $750 a pill. The company’s mogul, Martin Shkreli, justified this drastic increase by saying that it’s simply about keeping business going strong, and he even went so far as to say that the increase doesn’t deserve the widespread criticism it is receiving.

When it comes to treating leukemia, it has been estimated that the actual cost for a year’s supply of Gleevec (generic name imatinib), is an affordable $159. However, in the United States, it costs people suffering with the illness more than $106,000 annually; in the United Kingdom, it costs more than $30,000 each year.

The insanity continues. Continue reading →