"The explosion in the use of three anti-anemia drugs to treat cancer and kidney patients illustrates much that is wrong in the American pharmaceutical marketplace. The New York Times
On april 27th, we reported about drug company payments to physicians and how certain pharmaceutical companies were making a killing of the sale of anti-anemia drugs. At the time we noted the massive profits were due to the fact that doctors usually buy the drugs from the pharmaceutical companies, that they get reimbursed for much of the cost by Medicare and private insurers, and on top of that they receive rebates based on the amount they have purchased. Today we have a New York Times editorial weighing in on these issues:
Anti-anemia drug dosage levels may be harmful to patients; financial incentives have led to wider use and the prescribing of higher doses than medically desirable; lax regulators permit reckless promotional ads; dialysis patients are injected with drug dosages that raise their red blood cell counts to levels deemed risky by the Food and Drug Administration; and studies show that anti-anemia drugs make some cancers worse or hasten the deaths of cancer chemotherapy patients.
The only way to stem the the overprescription of anti-anemia drugs is to remove the financial incentives. Federal laws already bar drug companies from paying doctors to prescribe medicines in pill form. That prohibition should be extended to injected and intravenous medicines. The Federal Anti-Kickback Statute is also a useful tool that could be put to good use in this regard.
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