Under Pressure from Trump, Pfizer Will Begin Discounting Some Prescription Drugs for Americans to More Closely Match the Prices They Charge Foreigners

What an idea.

Pfizer has agreed to offer significantly discounted prices for some prescription drugs for all American consumers and has committed to offer prescription medications to Medicaid at lower prices, President Trump announced Tuesday. The president said the drugs will be available for purchase online on a website operated by the federal government, which the White House has said will be called "TrumpRx."

"Today, I'm thrilled to announce that one of the world's largest pharmaceutical manufacturers and one of the best anywhere in the world, Pfizer, has agreed to offer countless prescription medications at major discounts in the United States, a result of the 'most favored nation' drug pricing order that we established earlier this year," Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who was in the Oval Office with the president for the announcement, said Mr. Trump's threat of 100% tariffs on drugs manufactured outside the U.S. motivated his company to take swift action. The president said Pfizer's drug prices will be lower starting "immediately."

The president said the cost of some Pfizer drugs could see decreases in price of 50%-100%. Mr. Trump said this would save American consumers and taxpayers "hundreds of millions of dollars a year." The president said Americans have been "subsidizing research and development costs for the entire planet" because of the higher prices they have been paying.

"We're also announcing that moving forward, all new medications introduced by Pfizer to the American market will be sold at the reduced most favored nation cost," the president added. "So, we'll be paying essentially what other countries are paying, who have been much lower -- much, much lower for many, many years."

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The Pfizer agreement is a part of the White House agenda to secure "most favored nation" pricing with pharmaceutical manufacturers. In May, Mr. Trump signed an executive order calling on drugmakers to lower their prices and bring them in line with what other high-income countries pay for the same drugs. He threatened to subject them to steep caps on how much they can earn from Medicare if they failed to do so.

Monday was the deadline for drugmakers to reach agreements to bring down drug costs, the Post reported, after the president's May executive order. While the U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population and uses about 13% of the world's prescription drugs, the U.S. funds over 70% of global pharmaceutical profits, according to the White House.

In further Big Pharma news: Tylenol's maker "quietly" acknowledged the autism risk of the pain-reliever... back in 2018.

The pharmaceutical company behind Tylenol privately acknowledged the likelihood of an association between its drug in pregnancy and neurodevelopmental disorders like autism in children seven years ago, company documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.

"The weight of the evidence is starting to feel heavy to me," said Rachel Weinstein, U.S. director of epidemiology for Janssen, the pharmaceutical arm of Johnson & Johnson, in 2018. Johnson & Johnson marketed Tylenol at the time but in 2023 spun off its consumer products division into a separate company called Kenvue.

Legacy media headlines and vocal public health experts have dismissed the conclusion of President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that Tylenol taken in pregnancy and early infancy has driven rises in autism. But one stakeholder has for years viewed the evidence as credible enough to act upon, at least privately: The makers of Tylenol.

The DCNF obtained the company documents from the law firm Keller Postman LLC, which brought a class action lawsuit against Kenvue in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York.

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A decade before Weinstein's email, in 2008, Johnson & Johnson began receiving queries from consumers and physicians about a possible link, emails show.

"Not much choice but to consider this a safety signal that needs to be evaluated," J&J Office of Consumer Medical Safety Lead Andre Mann wrote in 2008 after receiving a letter from a physician with concerns.

Leslie Shur, the head of the division of Johnson & Johnson that monitors the side effects of drugs already on the market, received an alert in 2012 about concerns about acetaminophen and autism from a concerned father, with one employee writing "in case this goes to press."

Concerns about a link between Tylenol and neurological disorders may have reached the C-suite by 2014, according to another email, which references then-Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorski.

The makers of Tylenol have closely tracked a drumbeat of scientific publications finding an association between taking the blockbuster drug in pregnancy and infancy and autism risk, other company documents show.

A 2018 internal presentation the company labeled "privileged and confidential" acknowledges that observational studies show a "somewhat consistent" association between prenatal exposure to Tylenol and neurodevelopmental disorders. Another presentation slide acknowledges that larger meta-analyses -- reviews summarizing multiple scientific studies -- found an association, but notes weaknesses of these studies like confounding variables and subjectivity in measuring autistic traits.

Epoch Health @epochhealth

Tylenol Use in Pregnancy Linked to 3x Higher Autism and ADHD Risk

A Johns Hopkins study of umbilical cord blood found that babies with the highest acetaminophen exposure were three times more likely to be diagnosed with autism or ADHD.

This wasn't fringe science--it came from one of the most respected medical institutions in the world.

So why are millions of women still being told it is risk-free?

A recent study found that acetaminophen usage during pregnancy may be associated with a higher likelihood of the child developing autism spectrum disorder or ADHD later on in their childhood.

Acetaminophen, commonly sold under the brand name Tylenol and many others, has been considered the safest painkiller for pregnant women to manage fever, headache, and other pain.

It's also called paracetamol in other countries, including the United Kingdom.

But in the study published earlier this month, researchers led by Andrea Baccarelli of Harvard University found that when children are exposed to the drug during pregnancy “they may be more likely to develop neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) including autism and ADHD,” a university press release said on Aug. 20.

Analyzing the results of 46 studies on the painkiller that represents data from 100,000 participants, the researchers looked at a possible connection between pregnant women taking acetaminophen and neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and ADHD, also known as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Their analysis, according to the study's conclusion, "identified studies that found a statistically significant increased risk of NDDs such as ADHD and [autism spectrum disorder] from prenatal acetaminophen exposure, as well as a smaller number of studies that did not find such an association."

I just heard -- can't cite the source -- that one of the big health officials in the Trump Administration looked at these studies and found the ones that showed an association to be more rigorous and probative and the ones showing no association to be weaker and open to challenge.

Something like that is mentioned here:

The study, published on Aug. 13 in the BMC Environmental Health journal, did not show that acetaminophen can directly cause autism and ADHD, but the researchers involved in the paper raised concerns about current clinical guidelines around administering the painkiller for pregnant women.

"Our findings show that higher-quality studies are more likely to show a link between prenatal acetaminophen exposure and increased risks of autism and ADHD," said Diddier Prada, an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who was involved in the study, in a statement.

"Given the widespread use of this medication, even a small increase in risk could have major public health implications."

Prada added that "pregnant women should not stop taking medication without consulting their doctors," noting that "untreated pain or fever can also harm the baby. Our study highlights the importance of discussing the safest approach with health care providers and considering non-drug options whenever possible."

The paper adds to a body of research that has been collected about acetaminophen.

In 2019, a study from Johns Hopkins University that analyzed umbilical cord blood samples found an association between newborns with the highest exposure to the painkiller and ADHD or autism diagnoses during childhood.

Researchers found that they were "roughly three times more likely to be diagnosed" with either neurological condition later in their childhood when compared with children who were exposed to the lowest levels of acetaminophen, said the university at the time.

More at the link, including a Swedish study throwing doubt on the association.

posted by Ace at 06:35 PM

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