Saturday, June 30, 2012

Stupid Worm.

Sorting through the week's junk mail at the store I came across this actual ad for an actual drug:


Albenza is a med used in the treatment of tapeworms. It's like poison for worms. Which leads me to just one question:

What kind of worm agrees to be in an ad for something that's designed to kill it? And why does he look so happy? If I were that worm I'd be all like "OH MOTHER OF MERCY PLEASE DON'T!! I ONLY WANTED WHAT EVERY WORM WANTS... A DECENT LIFE, A LITTLE INTESTINAL BLOOD AND AN OPPORTUNITY FOR MY CHILDREN!! I'M BEGGING YOU.....oh god......."

Or at the very least I'd be a little pissed off. I think this worm has serious issues.

You don't suppose they tricked the worm do you? Made the Albenza taste like some sort of yummy worm food  and then killed the worm the way Bill Clinton executed someone so brain damaged he saved part of his last meal for later? 

The worm being retarded would make some sense.

Or maybe they're saying Albenza is a piece of crap that claims to kill worms but just leaves them contented and happy.

Something really isn't right here.


8 comments:

Từ Thanh Giác said...

The worm was depressed and suicidal. It was overjoyed that it was going to die.

Từ Thanh Giác said...

You don’t need expensive Albenza to get rid of tape worm. Three hard boiled eggs, two cookies and a hammer will to the trick. Shove one egg up the ass. Count to 10 and shove the cookie up the ass. Repeat this process the following day. On the third day shove the egg up the ass. Count to ten while holding the hammer. The worm will come out of the asshole and say “Hey Bud! Where’s the cookie.” Hit the worm on the head with the hammer.

wiley said...

This worm is a payed actor. He doesn't use the product.

Anonymous said...

LOL..I got this the other day too...I was like WTF...who would actual hang that up...

Anonymous said...

perhaps you dont see the hidden meaning...

There is going to be an off-label use as a worm anti-depressent/anti-psychotic. Pretty sure they are taking a page out of the book of the Abilify/Wellbutrin folks...Wellbutrin folks just got fined $3 Billion...

Anyway that is why the worm is smiling, it is for the alternate campaings they are going to launch...

Shalom said...

While you're talking about Albenza, why don't you mention that it just jumped in price by about 14x.

Used to be $268.29 for a bottle of 112 tablets, right? Now it's $780.85 for a bottle of 28. This means it went from $2.39 per tablet to $27.89 per tablet.

And you know why this happened? Because Teva discontinued mebendazole (Vermox), they being the last manufacturers of it in the USA, and the doctors that used to prescribe it for pinworms are now using albendazole off-label for them. (It's only approved for tapeworms, not pinworms, but I guess they figure that a worm is a worm is a worm, regardless of whether it cross-section is flat or round.)

And while I'm ranting about mebendazole, I should mention that one of the local medicaid HMOs, back in April, revised their formulary to remove all anthelmintics but mebendazole. This despite its having not been manufactured in six months.

Hanlon's Razor states, "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity." However, in this case, I really do sense malice. How so? Well, I called a СѴЅ nearby and asked whether they had mebendazole in stock. Of course they did; he seemed surprised that I would even doubt whether they have such a common item.

Now who administers the pharmacy benefit for Fidelis? СѴЅ/Сагемагк, of course.

They can't restrict you from going to any pharmacy you want; Rite Aid tried that when they bought PCS and there was a huge backlash. So what did they do? They must have bought up the entire last production, squirreled it away in their warehouse, and cornered the market, so anyone with a prescription for mebendazole has to go to them for it.

(How do I know they did this? I was there when they did it the first time. Remember when the old generic albuterol inhalers were pulled off the market because they had R-12 as the propellant? СѴЅ bought up the entire last production run from Apothecon, cornered the market, and then had us take them out of the boxes and dispense them in 60-dram vials. What was the point of wasting money like that, I hear someone ask? Because the box bore a notice that the product was immanently being discontinued, and they didn't want their customers to know. Then of course Сагемагк wouldn't pay for brand name Proventil/Ventolin/Proair HFA, which were the only ones still in production with R-134a ("HFA") propellant; no, they only paid for the generic albuterol, which was only available . . . guess where.)

They did the same thing when Apotex brought out the generic Plavix and was forced to pull it shortly thereafter; I remember one day opening a box from the warehouse and finding a couple dozen bottles. It's nothing but a backhanded way of ensuring a captive customer base. Illegal? Probably not. Unethical, or just sharp business practise? I think I'll abstain on that one.

Naturally, when СѴЅ bought Сагемагк, they swore on a stack of dictionaries that they would keep the PBM and the pharmacy separate, and deal with СѴЅ stores just like any others. If you believe that, I've gotta bridge to sell you. Only 129 years old, not too badly covered in bird shit.

(When this happened, back in April, I called up the customer service guys at Fidelis, and ranted at them about the mebendazole situation, as well as calling them on changing the formulary on THREE DAYS NOTICE, despite their own literature promising a two-month notice period. The nice lady from the formulary committee (or whatever it's called) told me that Сагемагк gave them just as much notice as Fidelis are giving us, and seemed not to know that Mebendazole was discontinued. She said she'd look into this. I don't know if my phone call did anything, but a few days ago they finally put Albenza back on formulary. Let's see now how long it stays there.)

Anonymous said...

Yesterday I picked up 4 Albenza tablets. The pharmacy told me that it was lucky for me that I had not one but two insurance companies because those four pills would have costs me $600.00 ........ That is such bullshit!

Unknown said...

It's complete crap. I paid $1090 for 6 albendazole tablets for a parasite infection. No insurance. Sad state of affairs here in the US. Next time I'll call a random number in Europe and bargain with them to buy some mebendazole over the counter there and mail it to me for $35 USD for 60 100mg tablets. Land of equal opportunity my ass. This place is screwed up. I was born here....I'm losing my faith in this place as I grow older.