I Want a New Drug by Steven Mussey MD

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1. One of the first questions I ask patients on multiple meds is whether they have any problem affording them. Too often the answer is “Well, most of them are no problem, but that Diabetamonster is $200 a month.” I ask, “Have you ever tried metformin?” “No, what’s that?”
   I see too many people who START their diabetic journey on meds that are less well-tested and more likely to cause hypoglycemia than ones you can get for $4 a month…because “This stuff is the latest thing in diabetes” (or hypertension, or whatever). Just what is the problem–patients who want to be trendy, or doctors who think patients expect it? Thank God I spend part of my professional time at a clinic for the uninsured, where we HAVE to stick to the $4 list or get the patient on a free-pills plan from the pharma company. My patients’ hypertension does just fine on older meds…and they’re not paying for somebody’s marketing campaign.

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