Medications: When cancer becomes a business

They are the cancer mafia: greedy doctors and pharmacists who risk the lives of patients for a lot of money – with expired and underdosed medications.

Medications: When cancer becomes a business
Content
  • Page 1 — when cancer becomes a business
  • Page 2 — maintain durability to increase delivery radius
  • Page 3 — it needs deep reforms, not just more control
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    Imagine you have cancer and you have all your hopes for chemorapy, but you only get ineffective salt. They wait for treatment to strike, but nothing happens. Soon y will take care of a funeral precaution so that ir loved ones do not have to deal with question of right coffin. And n you remember pharmacist, who sometimes brought infusion bags personally, with a little gift and question: "How are you today?" Who gave m his private mobile phone number and said, "Always call me!"

    In Essen this week trial will be continued against a pharmacist from Bottrop, who in tens of thousands of cases should have underdosed chemorapy and antibody infusions – often he should have even delivered pure saline solution without any active ingredient. There was a loss of at least 56 million euros for health insurance companies – damage to patients is not quantifiable. Thousands of people are tormented by question of wher pharmacist also stretched ir medication. Did he use it to play God?

    The pharmacist has so far been silent about accusations. For years, he should have endangered his patients ' lives without being noticed. Supervisory authorities controlled until 2017 laboratories of around 200 cancer pharmacists in Germany only every few years, and always announced. Infusions are not checked until today – one relies on integrity of approved professionals.

    The approach of pharmacist from Bottrop is certainly unprecedented. Neverless, a deception of patients and politics is equal to fact that industry is now kneeling "individual cases" and hardly discussing consequences. "With appropriate criminal energy, controls go into void," said president of Cancer Pharmacists Association FTE. The cost of more intensive checks and samples would be "out of proportion to real danger".

    Oliver Schröm Designated editor-in-chief of Research center "Correctiv" on authors page

    But what is "real danger"? When Bottrop pharmacist flew up in November 2016, we have been researching fraud with cancer drugs for two years. A pharmacist from Bavaria had contacted us shortly before Christmas 2014. He described in detail how pharmaceutical, doctors and pharmacists work toger to divide profits in business of cancer drugs. Established doctors can assign recipes for cancer drugs to a pharmacy of ir choice – unlike ordinary medications, for which free choice of pharmacies applies. This power can be paid to many of m, with thousands of euros per month. And many pharmacists pay, because without recipes y do not earn money. Your labs are expensive.

    Nicholas Investigative reporter and freelance author for time online to authors page

    What Bayer told us also took place elsewhere. In Schleswig-Holstein at gates of Hamburg, for example, a pharmacist brought a whole medical care centre (MVZ) under his control. This is forbidden to pharmacists, so that y cannot get ir own recipes. So pharmacist used a doctor as straw, a homeopath from Lower Saxony, to secure 51 percent of shares. Then he put doctors in MVZ under pressure to order ir cancer drugs – also known as cytostatic – henceforth with him.

    Date Of Update: 18 January 2018, 12:03
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