From News of the Weird, week of 12/19:
What's Weird is That it's Legal: The pharmaceutical company Genentech makes both Lucentis (a $2,000 injection for relieving age-related macular degeneration) and Avastin (an anti-cancer drug that many retina specialists prescribe for age-related macular degeneration because it is just as effective yet costs about $50). Using Avastin instead of Lucentis saves Medicare hundreds of millions of dollars a year, reported The New York Times in November, and, obviously, every dollar's savings is a dollar less income for Genentech. In response in October, the company commenced a lucrative rebate program for physicians, worth tens of thousands of dollars, that apparently passes as legal according to Medicare guidelines, but said one Ohio specialist, "There's no way to look at that without calling it bribery." [New York Times, 11-3-10]
The Milwaukee teachers' union filed an equal-rights lawsuit in August challenging health-insurance cutbacks by the budget-challenged Milwaukee Public Schools. The union was denouncing the elimination of Viagra as discrimination against men. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8-6-10]
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