AHF
AIDs Healthcare Foundation(AHF), a global AIDs organization
and a vocal critic of runaway drug pricing and drug profiteering, recently
criticized Gilead Sciences, its CEO John Martin and several senior executives
of the HIV/AIDS drug maker for continuing their practice of pillaging U.S.
taxpayers as a means to fund the company's unbridled corporate of executives.(Appositive)
This month the company gave out 8 million in bonuses to
senior executives, most of them cashed out with
33 million in stock options. CEO John Martin is in the top ten of all
executives, not just drug company executives. Gilead's latest January's Drug
product Hepatitis C treatment, Solvaldi, sells at 1,000 per pill, which totals
$84K for a twelve week course of treatment. The Solvaldi drug is 1,000 percent
more than Gilead's most expensive AIDs drug. As they continue their impetuous
quoting that the sky is the limit on drug pricing, the
taxpayers are getting even more aggravated. Michael Weinstein, President of
AIDS Healthcare Foundation, said "Like Icarus,
who flew too close to the sun and lost his wings, Gilead keeps reaching higher
and higher, or deeper and deeper into the pockets of U.S. taxpayers, fleecing
them by pricing its drugs at such astronomical levels."(Analogy)Stating
that the largest single purchaser of drugs in the U.S. is the government and by
selling them all the products they need continues the vicious, ongoing cycle:
unbridled corporate greed at the expense of taxpayers' wallets. (Antithesis) AHF
currently provides medical care to more than 279,756 individuals in 32
countries worldwide in the Us, Africa Latin American/Caribbean, the
Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe.(Amplification) Should AHF still
purchase these extremely high drugs even though there are people in need?
Source Citation
"AIDS Healthcare Foundation: Gilead Execs Cash Out at Taxpayers' Expense." Health & Beauty Close-Up 7 Feb. Health Reference Center Academic. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.
Multi-Genre - Magazine Article
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