Why do I call them evil? Because they live off the sickness and misfortune of others, and the sicker people are there, the more they rejoice, because the more they earn. An arms manufacturer can say that he makes them for war, and if innocent civilians die, it is not his fault, but the fault of the one who uses them. Oil companies can say that it is not their fault that the price of oil is rising, but the fault of those who impose sanctions on some producers,
Pharmaceutical companies might say that they make drugs for diseases, and that’s a good thing. But notice that the cost of making a drug is lower the more of it you make. If a company makes 50 aspirin, each one will cost X. If Bayer makes 1 million aspirin, it will cost X.
If Bayer makes a million aspirin, each one will cost 0.0000000000000X or whatever quantity is produced, which is very difficult to calculate. And the one who made 50 aspirin will be able to sell each one for 10 pesos, for example, and his profit will be limited, but he may make a profit. The person who has made a million aspirins can sell them for one cent each and his profit will be enormous.
I would have liked to give you the actual cost of making a Bayer aspirin, but it was impossible because this data is as confidential as a state secret. If a reader were to find out, he would become famous.
By the way, prices are not only set by the manufacturers, there are many intermediaries in this business: large and small distributors, very good and very bad pharmacies, etc. Prices vary according to the region, the city, and the country. But that’s the least of it, the ones who win are the drug companies, and there are very few of them.
So, let’s see who are the biggest and most important pharmaceutical companies in the world in 2023.
There are different criteria, but they are very similar and perhaps depend on the vaccines and the year in which the assessment was made.
These are the most valuable pharmaceutical brands in 2023, according to Brand Finance:
Johnson & Johnson. Valuation: $12,759 billion (mdd.)
Roche. Valuation: $8,466 million.
Pfizer. Valuation: $6,201 million.
Merck & Co. Valuation: 5,769 million dollars.
AstraZeneca. Valuation: 5,595 million dollars.
Bayer. Valuation: 5,471 million dollars. …
Bristol Myers Squibb. Valuation: $4,403 million.
Aspirin is perhaps the world’s best-selling medicine, which is why I used it as an example. 2,500 aspirin tablets are consumed every second. That’s 200 million a year worldwide. Other estimates put it in tones, just imagine. Please don’t criticize my calculations because the various figures on the internet are as I say. You can do the math’s if you like. A total of 350 billion aspirin tablets have been sold since 1897, when Bayer chemist Felix Hoffman discovered acetylsalicylic acid. Although it is not addictive, aspirin has more followers than ever and new uses are being discovered every year.
In reality, it is not the price at which they are sold that matters but how much they cost to produce. You can imagine how much Bayer made on each aspirin. Even if it was pennies or thousands of a penny, it is an incalculable fortune. Now there are more expensive drugs, for certain diseases that are used less, but there are none like aspirin. Let me take a quick look at the price of aspirin in different countries. The retail price is set not only by the manufacturer, but also by the pharmacy and other intermediaries. The pharmacy can be a very fancy pharmacy or a very modest one. The price changes if you buy it online or in person. It also varies according to the area, the province and, most importantly, the country. I had to convert the price into dollars to be able to compare one country with another, although the value of the dollar changes all the time, but it is worse than nothing.
Well, it’s more or less like this:
IN MEXICO: A box of 40 tablets of 500 mg costs about 50 Mexican pesos or less, or about 3 dollars.
IN CHILE: The same box costs 3840 Chilean pesos, or about 4 dollars.
IN SPAIN: The same box costs 5.38 euros, or about 5 dollars.
IN THE UNITED STATES: A box of 40 500 mg tablets costs about $20.
Well, as I said, prices can vary greatly depending on different factors, but you can see that in Latin America and Europe they are sold at similar prices, although in Europe they are a little more expensive, which is understandable because people earn more. In the United States, on the other hand, they are very expensive, and why is that?
Well, let’s leave aspirin aside and see why all medicines in the United States are the most expensive in the world.
Why is that? Because we all know that the private sector is much more important to them than the public sector, i.e. the government. There is a widening gap between those who have a lot of money and those who have little. This is at the root of many of the problems in the United States today that affect many people: good medical care that is virtually unaffordable, inadequate housing, an overpriced and underperforming education system. The pharmaceutical companies have enormous political influence, so they are allowed to do as they please. There is no price control because it is unthinkable there. And if there are people with little or no resources who don’t have access to medicine, it’s their fault, the gringos say. I have a friend who has lived there and knows very well what is happening in the United States, and he told me:
“I have never seen the level of poverty and misery that I saw recently. And it is accompanied by an extraordinarily polarized political climate. And from what I have seen in California, a ‘liberal’ state, I can easily imagine the debacle in the rest of the United States.
I would add that there is a strange gerontocracy and that of the two presidential candidates, one is a decrepit old man and the other an unbalanced old man. The prices of medicines and many other things are impossible, but the governments don’t care. For example, Biden said that barbed wire should not be put up against migrants in the Rio Bravo, but the governor of Texas keeps putting it up and migrants, especially children, get caught and drown and nothing happens. Trump, the day he wakes up in a bad mood, can press the atomic bomb button. Look in whose hands the world is.
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE IN MEXICO
The current Mexican government has had a lot of problems with pharmaceutical companies, problems that go back to previous governments: corruption, inefficiency, cronyism, etc.,
Certain companies accounted for 60% of government sales in 2018, which is viewed with suspicion by Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) due to possible ‘influence peddling’. For this reason, his government has vetoed three pharmaceutical distribution companies, preventing them from participating in tenders and direct awards in the health sector. AMLO added that if a company sells more than 30% of all medicines, there could be a monopolistic practice in violation of the constitution.
And he pointed out that if there are attempts to block the supply of certain goods and medicines, the borders will be opened and what is needed will be bought from all over the world, but it will not be possible to continue with corruption.
In light of the above, there has been a certain shortage of medicines in Mexico, which has been exacerbated by the effects of Covid 19 and, above all, by the increase in prices imposed by the monopolistic importing companies.
In order to solve the problems of shortages that sometimes occur in certain states, in the social security system or in a particular hospital, the AMLO government has created the so-called Mega Pharmacy of Wellbeing. The federal government, or this pharmacy, will be able to import medicines from any country or place, taking care of the interests and the money of the Mexican people.
The mega-pharmacy will probably be the largest in the world; within 48 hours at the latest, the medicines needed will arrive, free of charge.
It will provide 20,000 medical units; patients themselves can call 5595-00911.
It is intended for the 50 million Mexicans without social security who are treated by IMSS-Wellbeing (IMSS is the Mexican Social Security Institute, which treats workers in the private sector and the uninsured), 20 million IMSS-insured and their families, and all workers covered by Issste; (Issste treats federal government workers).
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE IN CHILE
Chile has always had very good doctors. Before the dictatorship, they all went to the patients’ homes, but not now. Unfortunately, it seems that taking the sick to the doctor’s office is something that happens all over the world. I don’t understand how a seriously ill person, for example, a child, can be taken away to be taken to the doctor, but that’s the way it is.
The Boric government had an extraordinary Minister of Health, Dr Begoña Yarza, the daughter of Simón Yarza, a Chilean exile in Cuba. She was educated on the island and then moved to Chile because she thought she could be more useful there. Begoña was the director of Chile’s best hospitals and clinics. Boric appointed her Minister of Health, but as she was not a member of any political party, the President eventually changed her. Now Dr Ximena Aguilera is the Minister of Health, and as far as I know, she also has a good professional background and is a fighter for Democratic Socialism, a center-left coalition. You may know what that is, but I do not.
Recoleta
If you want to talk about health in Chile, you have to talk about the Recoleta community in Santiago and its mayor, Daniel Jadue, who is of Palestinian origin. The Palestinian community in Chile is the largest in the world, I do not know why: around 300,000 or 400,000 people. But let’s explain who Daniel Jadue is, just in case people from another country are reading this…
He was born in Chile in 1967, so he is now 57 years old, I think he is divorced and has a son or daughter. If you want to know more about his family, look him up on the internet because I can’t go into too much detail. I have seen his photos and he looks nice. Jadue has several professions: architect, and sociologist from the University of Chile, he also has a diploma in Total Quality Management from the Catholic University of the North and is a candidate for a Master in Urban Planning and a Specialist in Social Housing, also from the University of Chile. He is an accredited consultant for the Municipal Services Accreditation System for the implementation of the Quality Management Model for Municipal Services in municipalities. He is a militant of the Communist Party of Chile (PCCh), which is considered to be rather unruly, which is interesting. Daniel Jadue was mayor of the Recoleta district of Santiago. It used to be quite poor, generally lower-middle class, although the University of Chile’s law school is there. That’s what we used to call it, now I think it’s Escuela de Derecho or something like that. We inherited all these words and names from the dictatorship because, apart from being murderers and thieves, they were impossibly corny. Daniel Jadue was and will be mayor of Recoleta for three terms, from 2012 to mid-2024, as he cannot be re-elected for legal reasons. What has Jadue done to achieve this?
The first thing he did was to create a Farmacia Popular, which sells medicines much cheaper than others. How did he do this? I do not know, but I understand that he buys the medicines just like the other pharmacies and then sells them at almost no profit, financing his pharmacy with the municipal budget.
The pharmaceutical companies tried to boycott him, but they were discovered and failed.
After the pharmacy, he created the Optica Popular, Escuelas Abiertas, Salud en tu Barrio, Inmobiliaria Popular, the Universidad Abierta de Recoleta, the popular bookshop “Recoletras”, the “Energía Popular”, the popular dentist and many other cultural initiatives. I suppose so, yes, although the enthusiastic neighbors also contribute in whatever way they can. All these benefits are for the residents of Recoleta, and now everyone wants to live there.
The man has become famous in Chile and abroad. Many Chilean mayors try to imitate him, and he helps them. But to do what Daniel Jadue has done in Recoleta, you have to be very honest, very disinterested in money, have a deep love for the people, in short, be very tough, and not all mayors are like that.
In 2021, the Chilean Communist Party declared him its presidential candidate for the 2022/2026 elections. He competed with Gabriel Boric and others in the primaries and lost. How was that possible? I guess because there is very little information in Chile and people still believe that communists eat raw babies. Daniel Jadue has never invited me to his house or anywhere else, because I live in Mexico and I am an unbearable old woman. But I am convinced that he does not eat raw or cooked babies, I give you, my word.
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE IN CUBA
Cuban medicine is famous throughout the world for many reasons. One of them is that it provides free, high-quality services to all citizens. Cuba’s socialist government considers access to healthcare a basic human right. Cuban doctors work in areas where local doctors will not go. The export of medical services is also an important line of Cuba’s internationalism and solidarity with the peoples of the world.
According to the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the contingent of health collaborators includes 15,000 doctors, 2,300 ophthalmologists, 15,000 graduates, 5,000 health technicians and 800 service personnel working in 60 countries.
The attraction of Cuban doctors for many developing countries is that they are willing to work in places that nationals avoid, such as slums or hard-to-reach rural areas where people’s ability to pay is minimal. They have also gone to dangerous places, such as the Ebola outbreak, that other doctors avoid.
Health care in Cuba is public and free. There are no private hospitals or private health insurance because it is not needed. Medical education is also free. The basic course lasts six years and is very practical.
Cuban medicine is outstanding in the field of scientific research, as Cuba was the first country to receive official recognition from the World Health Organization (WHO) for eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
In 2017, the Pan American and World Health Organizations (PAHO/WHO) recognized the progress made by Cuba in the field of research, whose model is equivalent to that of a developed country,
Other triumphs of Cuban medical research include the creation of very important medicines. Here are the top five with the greatest international prestige.
CIMAvax EGF vaccine: This is the world’s first vaccine against lung cancer. The CIMAvax-EGF vaccine is indicated for patients with advanced lung cancer.
Heberprot-P: A unique drug for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers. Based on human growth factor, it is injected directly into the lesion. The use of Heberprot-P has reduced amputation rates.
VA-MENGOC-BC, a potent vaccine against meningococcal B and C: VA-MENGOC-BC is a bivalent vaccine consisting of meningococcal B outer membrane vesicles and meningococcal C capsular polysaccharide. It is currently the world’s only vaccine against both meningococcal B and C.
Melagenin Plus: Developed in Cuba to treat vitiligo, it is made from human placenta, which has properties that stimulate the production of melanocytes. Studies have shown it to be effective in 86% of cases.
5. The Abdala vaccine against covid 19, of which Mexico has received almost three million doses and used them with full success.
All this in spite of the merciless blockade imposed on Cuba for 60 years by the United States without any justification, keeping its people in poverty. In the United Nations General Assembly, all but two countries voted against the blockade: the United States and Israel. That is why Mexico has argued that all these countries should not only vote against the blockade, but also break it in practice by trading with Cuba as much as possible. Mexico did this and the Yankees had to accept it. The fact is that, despite everything, the Yankees have a strange respect for dignified, honest and patriotic governments. The others they despise.
