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The big bucks I pay to drug dealers

By Walter G. Meyer

March 13, 2006

San Diego--We’ve all seen them, those flashy drug dealers with their gold watches and bling bling. They lavish gifts on their friends and you can’t help but wonder who’s paying for it all. I can’t help feeling like I am.

Getting twice-weekly, then weekly, then semiweekly and now monthly allergy shots for the past three years, I have watched a steady parade of drug salespeople come into the office of my allergist bearing presents that would break the back of St. Nicholas. Lunches, clipboards, clocks, pens, ties, picture frames, shirts, stuffed animals—it’s the inventory of a small gift shop.

Every drug rep I’ve ever known has always been generous with these baubles even to me, although I can’t write prescriptions. I have a large supply of pens that advertise cures for a host of maladies. These aren’t the cheap stick pens with the plastic cap. These are my favorite pens—the thick kind with the retractable point and soft, comfortable grips. (One of these says “Abbot Renal Care” and I try not to think too much about a pen’s relationship to that.)

I have a clipboard advertising a kidney medicine and a note pad for allergy medicine. I even have a Viagra tie. To what event I might wear it I still don’t know. If an affair is formal enough to require a tie how, could I wear one that has those distinctive tiny blue pills all over it? And the Pfizer rep who gave it to me said he was required to give fair warning that wearing it can cause a stiff neck.

But who pays for all of this? How many cents do these drug companies add to the cost of each Viagra to pay for these ties and pens? How many dollars do they add to the cost of each allergy pill to pay for these “free” lunches?

Every time I see my allergist at his office by San Diego State, he always prescribes the most expensive meds—often more than $200 for a week’s supply. I can’t help but think that I—and my health insurance—have picked up a lot of lunch tabs. Most of these most expensive new meds are not even partially covered by my health plan. Many of them may be miracle drugs, but I wouldn’t know since I had to decline them when I learned the price.

A prescription for an antibiotic for my recurrent sinus infection was $15 per pill. (Does Ecstasy cost this much? Maybe I could just take those and forget about the sinus pains.) Could the drug company cut the price to $14 if they hadn’t bought so many pens?

Limits are put on gifts from lobbyists so they can’t unduly influence lawmakers. I have to believe that doctors, nurses and the rest of their staff might feel some influence from so many gifts as well. Was there another antibiotic that was just as good but, at $1.50 a pill, didn’t have the marketing behind it? Would that inexpensive drug be overlooked when the doctor took out the prescription pad?

I have received “free” samples from my doctor of various sinus meds, some of which worked, some didn’t, and none of which I ever used beyond the free supply. For the price of a year’s supply of any of them I could have bought a German sports car. At times, I feel like the schoolyard victim of the neighborhood drug dealer—they’re offering samples of heroin or coke knowing that once hooked, I’ll be back for more. Unfortunately even this legal drug habit isn’t one I can afford.

The pharmaceutical companies blame research for the high cost of prescription drugs, and I don’t doubt that a great deal of money is spent in the lab. Sometimes the drug companies drill dry holes that yield no useable drugs, and we’re all grateful when a new wonder drug can ease our suffering. But one easy place they could cut costs is on the gift catalog. Let my doctor buy his own pens and lunch, and pass the considerable savings on to me and other people who find ourselves hard pressed to pay for life-improving or life-saving medications.

Or I could go to the 99-cent store and buy him a pack of pens, and bring him a PB&J sandwich if that means getting my sinus pills at half price.

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Walter G. Meyer is a freelancer in San Diego. He writes about anything, on just about any topic, from local baseball to endangered sea turtles. His work can be seen at waltergmeyer.com

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