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153,000 for Crofab leaves left complaining about hospital costs.

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  • 153,000 for Crofab leaves left complaining about hospital costs.

    So I read an article about a gentlemen who was being all stupid and decided the smart thing to do would be to pick up a rattlesnake and get it to pose for a selfie with him. Problem number 1.

    Rattlesnakes as you all know are not cooperative and really don't like selfies. I'm not sure they're too fond of being picked up by people either.

    Naturally this rattlesnake did what all rattlesnakes (or most) rattlesnakes do when someone annoys them. He (or she) struck. From the description, likely with a full load of venom from the description. Especially if it was aggravated enough or a Juvenile. Now thanks to this man's stupidity he cost the hospital their supply and a neighboring hospital a supply of Crofab. The pharmaceutical charge alone was 83,000. Lesson, don't pick up a wild rattler. Considering that each bite from this species averages 12 vials of Crofab he actually needed more just to survive. 12*5 =60 so he may have needed 75-80k's worth which is closer to 16 vials of the precious medicine.
    Crofab isn't just made easy peasy. One has to milk a pit viper, (yield of venom is dependent on the size and type of pit viper) inject a part of the serum into a horse and then make it once the horse's blood has developed the antibodies. Given the time it takes to make Crofab, the cost of a serpent's up keep, vet care horse vet care.... The fact that there is one maker of antivenom, etc.....$5000 per vial generally speaking is probably a base price and not too profitable for the pharmaceutical company either and nor do I blame them.

    Just given that The liberal left is up in arms about this particular hospital bill bothers me. A snake bite is VERY costly, True. In this case it was the person's fault. Another issue, the liberal left is making the case out of THIS person's bill. The IDIOT!!!!! He quite frankly reflects an abuse of the human right to be stupid and therefore the neccessary consequence and Cost of said stupidity. It wasn't some poor tourist who accidently got bitten, it was someone who picked up a rattler and is complaining about the expense of their care! ermmm no. Not cool. If you don't want to pay, don't do something that's worthy of a darwin's "hey y'all watch this." Then blame the healthcare system.
    Here's the people who did the story then help him get the word out about how much he was charged.

    The Post's Spin was this
    Source: the Washington Post

    Earlier this month a guy named Todd Fassler was bitten by a rattlesnake in San Diego, KGTV San Diego reports. In itself this isn't terribly unusual — the CDC estimates that roughly 7,000 to 8,000 people a year get bitten by a venomous snake in the United States. And somewhere between five and six people die from these bites each year.

    What raised eyebrows, though, was Fassler's hospital bill — all $153,000 of it. KGTV reporter Dan Haggerty shared it on Twitter. Take a look.http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...business_pop_b

    © Copyright Original Source

    If you want to see the itemized bill
    His local station shows this: [cite=KGTV] SAN DIEGO -- A local man who was nearly killed while trying to take a selfie with a rattlesnake racked up a whopping $150,000 hospital bill.[/KGTV]
    http://www.10news.com/news/one-rattl...0k-doctor-bill

    To add to the insult The Washington Post Fails to mention it may have been his own rattle snake, and that he was attempting to get a selfie. KGTV is investigating to find out.
    A happy family is but an earlier heaven.
    George Bernard Shaw

  • #2
    Originally posted by Catholicity View Post
    So I read an article about a gentlemen who was being all stupid and decided the smart thing to do would be to pick up a rattlesnake and get it to pose for a selfie with him. Problem number 1.

    Rattlesnakes as you all know are not cooperative and really don't like selfies. I'm not sure they're too fond of being picked up by people either.

    Naturally this rattlesnake did what all rattlesnakes (or most) rattlesnakes do when someone annoys them. He (or she) struck. From the description, likely with a full load of venom from the description. Especially if it was aggravated enough or a Juvenile. Now thanks to this man's stupidity he cost the hospital their supply and a neighboring hospital a supply of Crofab. The pharmaceutical charge alone was 83,000. Lesson, don't pick up a wild rattler. Considering that each bite from this species averages 12 vials of Crofab he actually needed more just to survive. 12*5 =60 so he may have needed 75-80k's worth which is closer to 16 vials of the precious medicine.
    Crofab isn't just made easy peasy. One has to milk a pit viper, (yield of venom is dependent on the size and type of pit viper) inject a part of the serum into a horse and then make it once the horse's blood has developed the antibodies. Given the time it takes to make Crofab, the cost of a serpent's up keep, vet care horse vet care.... The fact that there is one maker of antivenom, etc.....$5000 per vial generally speaking is probably a base price and not too profitable for the pharmaceutical company either and nor do I blame them.

    Just given that The liberal left is up in arms about this particular hospital bill bothers me. A snake bite is VERY costly, True. In this case it was the person's fault. Another issue, the liberal left is making the case out of THIS person's bill. The IDIOT!!!!! He quite frankly reflects an abuse of the human right to be stupid and therefore the neccessary consequence and Cost of said stupidity. It wasn't some poor tourist who accidently got bitten, it was someone who picked up a rattler and is complaining about the expense of their care! ermmm no. Not cool. If you don't want to pay, don't do something that's worthy of a darwin's "hey y'all watch this." Then blame the healthcare system.
    Here's the people who did the story then help him get the word out about how much he was charged.

    The Post's Spin was this
    Source: the Washington Post

    Earlier this month a guy named Todd Fassler was bitten by a rattlesnake in San Diego, KGTV San Diego reports. In itself this isn't terribly unusual — the CDC estimates that roughly 7,000 to 8,000 people a year get bitten by a venomous snake in the United States. And somewhere between five and six people die from these bites each year.

    What raised eyebrows, though, was Fassler's hospital bill — all $153,000 of it. KGTV reporter Dan Haggerty shared it on Twitter. Take a look.http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...business_pop_b

    © Copyright Original Source

    If you want to see the itemized bill
    His local station shows this: [cite=KGTV] SAN DIEGO -- A local man who was nearly killed while trying to take a selfie with a rattlesnake racked up a whopping $150,000 hospital bill.[/KGTV]
    http://www.10news.com/news/one-rattl...0k-doctor-bill

    To add to the insult The Washington Post Fails to mention it may have been his own rattle snake, and that he was attempting to get a selfie. KGTV is investigating to find out.

    It seems possible that one can both hold this fellow personally responsible for his actions and believe that paying over $100,000 for venom medication is excessive. The issue of pharmaceutical patent abuse is definitely something worth being upset about, even if one of the victims of that abuse found himself in that situation by his own stupidity.

    Living up here in Michigan, we generally shoo snakes off the road when they're in the way; a garter or eastern fox snake isn't going to give you trouble. Driving down a highway in Florida, however, you don't necessarily want to do that — I spied a snake sunning himself and identified it as a diamondback rattler but some other Michigander might have just thought it was another big snake. Whatever trouble the Darwin Award candidates get themselves into is far less frequent than people who just don't know better or have a legitimate accident.
    "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Sam View Post
      It seems possible that one can both hold this fellow personally responsible for his actions and believe that paying over $100,000 for venom medication is excessive. The issue of pharmaceutical patent abuse is definitely something worth being upset about, even if one of the victims of that abuse found himself in that situation by his own stupidity.

      Living up here in Michigan, we generally shoo snakes off the road when they're in the way; a garter or eastern fox snake isn't going to give you trouble. Driving down a highway in Florida, however, you don't necessarily want to do that — I spied a snake sunning himself and identified it as a diamondback rattler but some other Michigander might have just thought it was another big snake. Whatever trouble the Darwin Award candidates get themselves into is far less frequent than people who just don't know better or have a legitimate accident.
      I think the point is that they are trying to hide the fact that this was essentially a self-inflicted injury via utter stupidity to make their point.

      I'm always still in trouble again

      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Sam View Post
        It seems possible that one can both hold this fellow personally responsible for his actions and believe that paying over $100,000 for venom medication is excessive. The issue of pharmaceutical patent abuse is definitely something worth being upset about, even if one of the victims of that abuse found himself in that situation by his own stupidity.

        Living up here in Michigan, we generally shoo snakes off the road when they're in the way; a garter or eastern fox snake isn't going to give you trouble. Driving down a highway in Florida, however, you don't necessarily want to do that — I spied a snake sunning himself and identified it as a diamondback rattler but some other Michigander might have just thought it was another big snake. Whatever trouble the Darwin Award candidates get themselves into is far less frequent than people who just don't know better or have a legitimate accident.
        Crofab and Antivenom in general is not the best drug to attack for cost abuse. For one thing, its a VERY difficult drug to make given the source of the drug. (I for one do not want to make a career out of milking a snake for a few mililiters of venom) Their are not that many places willing to handle the source. Secondly consider how this is made. Its not exactly POURING out unlimited supply here.
        A happy family is but an earlier heaven.
        George Bernard Shaw

        Comment


        • #5
          Also what rogue said too.
          A happy family is but an earlier heaven.
          George Bernard Shaw

          Comment


          • #6
            Catholicity,

            The "Liberal left" as you put it is generically up in arms about the expensiveness of all hospital bills in the US, and the insanity on the right that is preventing actions being taken that would provably substantially lower costs. The supposed "fiscal conservatives" on the right seem to turn off the fiscally conservative part of their brain half the time as they don't seem to care about costs when it comes to wasting insane amounts of money on inefficient healthcare, private prisons, or wars. It's bizarre stuff. This particular hospital bill is just the latest example of a ridiculously sized bill for medical care in the US. The self-inflicted nature of it is irrelevant to the point the Liberal left is trying to make, and is a total red herring.

            The rest of the world is laughing at the US over their insistence on having a really expensive and inefficient healthcare system.
            "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
            "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
            "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Catholicity View Post
              Crofab and Antivenom in general is not the best drug to attack for cost abuse. For one thing, its a VERY difficult drug to make given the source of the drug. (I for one do not want to make a career out of milking a snake for a few mililiters of venom) Their are not that many places willing to handle the source. Secondly consider how this is made. Its not exactly POURING out unlimited supply here.
              Nevertheless, the price is inflated due to the way patents work, not how the drug is made.

              Are there better examples of patent abuse? Absolutely. Modafinil should have been a generic years ago but the manufacturer cut deals to keep generics off the market ... and then bought the manufacturer of the generic and kept the price inflated. But that doesn't invalidate the complaint that this is also an example of patent abuse and is therefore worthy of criticism.
              "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                I think the point is that they are trying to hide the fact that this was essentially a self-inflicted injury via utter stupidity to make their point.
                I don't think a point is trying to be hidden, at least not any of the (few) sources I've seen on this incident. It's just not particularly relevant to the point: with some 7000 - 8000 treatments per year, some will be self-inflicted. Many won't be. It's an incidental point that doesn't detract from the complaint being made. No need to hide what's not particularly relevant anyway.
                "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                  I think the point is that they are trying to hide the fact that this was essentially a self-inflicted injury via utter stupidity to make their point.
                  If they identify the injury as being the result of a selfie, that's not hiding the self-inflicted nature of it. Because "selfie."

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    I think it's just proof that the fellow lacked faith.



                    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      The competitor in 2018 is using sheep and the vial price there is 1500 per vial. Crofab can run up to 5000 but can cost as little as 2,000. 500 dollars isn't that much of a difference and consider again the resources used to make it. This isn't exactly the market of statins or anti epileptic drugs or even neo plasmics we're discussing
                      A happy family is but an earlier heaven.
                      George Bernard Shaw

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                        I think it's just proof that the fellow lacked faith.




                        CP won TWeb for the day. All hail.
                        "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Catholicity View Post
                          The competitor in 2018 is using sheep and the vial price there is 1500 per vial. Crofab can run up to 5000 but can cost as little as 2,000. 500 dollars isn't that much of a difference and consider again the resources used to make it. This isn't exactly the market of statins or anti epileptic drugs or even neo plasmics we're discussing
                          So we can agree that there are better patent abuse examples but I think we can also agree that this is an extreme, though infrequent, example as well. $500 is a good amount of money, especially as multiple treatments are required - six to seven necessary treatments on a $500/treatment difference ends up being $3000 - $3500. Not necessarily pocket change. And that's if one has the benefit of insurance or a hospital that has a straightforward formulary sheet.
                          "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Sam View Post
                            So we can agree that there are better patent abuse examples but I think we can also agree that this is an extreme, though infrequent, example as well. $500 is a good amount of money, especially as multiple treatments are required - six to seven necessary treatments on a $500/treatment difference ends up being $3000 - $3500. Not necessarily pocket change. And that's if one has the benefit of insurance or a hospital that has a straightforward formulary sheet.
                            No its not pocket change. But after reading BTG's revenue vs operating costs vs profit. This is not their big money making drug. Aside from that they are a British based company and have much strictor rules. Antivenom is not actually considered a profitable drug. In fact Wyeth ceased to make coralmyn for a few reasons. One there was no return on their investment at all. and two of the less than 100 people that are bitten by the elapid, there are other ways of treatment that keep the survival rate extremely high. Now recently in Mexico a similar Coralmyn type product has become available and can be sold to the US, but the cost of making the drug is so high that with so few people to treat and other methods available why would you elect to make something that expensive? It might be a sign of greed here, however when Wyeth was acquired by Pfizer they've begun to test a newer Serum. And while I don't often defend the price of medication, it takes 69,000 milkings to yield one pint of venom from your average coral snake.

                            For the argument of expensive healthcare we should be discussing why its 600 a month for brand name seizure medicine ans 300 for generic
                            A happy family is but an earlier heaven.
                            George Bernard Shaw

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Catholicity View Post
                              No its not pocket change. But after reading BTG's revenue vs operating costs vs profit. This is not their big money making drug. Aside from that they are a British based company and have much strictor rules. Antivenom is not actually considered a profitable drug. In fact Wyeth ceased to make coralmyn for a few reasons. One there was no return on their investment at all. and two of the less than 100 people that are bitten by the elapid, there are other ways of treatment that keep the survival rate extremely high. Now recently in Mexico a similar Coralmyn type product has become available and can be sold to the US, but the cost of making the drug is so high that with so few people to treat and other methods available why would you elect to make something that expensive? It might be a sign of greed here, however when Wyeth was acquired by Pfizer they've begun to test a newer Serum. And while I don't often defend the price of medication, it takes 69,000 milkings to yield one pint of venom from your average coral snake.

                              For the argument of expensive healthcare we should be discussing why its 600 a month for brand name seizure medicine ans 300 for generic
                              It looks like Crofab is the second-highest drug in BTG's revenue charts. Overall operating costs v. profit isn't the best indicator of patent abuse since we'd want to see the R&D costs, clinical trial costs, etc. v. drug revenue. That said, just under $100 million/year for one drug has me raising an eyebrow at the idea that we're not seeing the abuse of having a single drug on the market.

                              Brand name v. generic is a worthwhile discussion, too, but it's not a discussion about patent law preventing generics or competitors coming to market, as is the case here.
                              "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

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