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The meds are over priced to begin with. come on $1500-$2000 a month for 30 pills. Just lower the price to what they are really worth and stop make the pharmecutical companies billionairs
I am so sorry to hear of the negative side affects some experience with Atripla. And I believe it equally important to let others know that some have very little side affects, if any. I apologize for not having hard numbers about this, rather my own experience. I have taken Atripla since 2001 and, in the first week, had few negative reactions. I felt flu like symptoms for about 3 days, was lethargic for about 5, and amazing, beautiful technicolor dreams for 10...with no long term negatives .
You could start by asking the question of why we are still paying an average price of $700 per course of AZT. AZT was developed in the late 50's for cancer, found to be too toxic at the dosages necessary to treat cancer (we found that out early on in the HIV treatment crisis too) then was put on the shelf for 30 years. When HIV infection came along, big Pharma trotted out AZT and charged immoral prices for a drug whose expenses had already been paid for by tax payer money. Same for DDI spin offs
Why not talk about Viriday a generic attripla from India the cost is $155 per 30 day supply. I have been taking it for 9 months now with no downside.
With lots of respect to Tim, I think the wrong end of the stick is being grasped here. Rochelle Walensky built lower expectations of efficacy into her model as a way of being conservative about the impact of generics. If you assumed they were to be just asp otent, you would see no disadvantage in terms of life expectancy at all.
Bob- I agree-if Sustiva were free I would not take it--and I have heard of people using it to get high as in hallucinate-it is a psychosis inducing med-had head of psychiatry tell me many patients got sick mentally from it and never get better-I still have lingering effects that I blame for a lot of my woes cognitively--worst med since AZT for side effects but these are insane--can not belive docs hawking this crud with other options on generics coming soon and Truvada-Gilead hep C GREED INC
Minor problem-Efaverenz is IMHO POISON,= makes you psychotic (allegedly those with tend to depression but I have no depression and the stuff was like LSD-causing paranoia, incoherence, inability to reason and almost cost me my job until I stopped it-it is an awful med, Intelence is far better if they go with non-nuke- as would any protease although most are toxic too. The thought is good but the problem is greed on the brand name pharma's not the need to go generic-everyone reacts differently.
John Edwards
I am looking at retiring possibly as early as 2017, due to a change in retirement benefits by my employer. The cost of paying for Atripla will be much more than I pay now, as it is currently covered in my health benefits with a minimal co-pay. I'm trying to figure out the difference in my healthcare costs if I retire or remain employed, and if Atripla becomes available in a genereic form some time in 2017, it will make a huge difference. Any advice or suggestions?
October 21, 2014 • San Francisco