Right-to-die group comes up with new, cheaper medication
Source: Associated Press
Right-to-die group comes up with new, cheaper medication
Updated 5:18 pm, Sunday, April 3, 2016
SEATTLE (AP) — Right-to-die advocates in Washington state have created a cheaper alternative mixture of medications to help terminally ill patients legally end their lives after a drug company abruptly hiked the price of a drug commonly used for the purpose.
Doctors with the End of Life Washington advocacy group concocted the alternative for about $500, after Valeant Pharmaceuticals International of Quebec acquired the drug and jacked up the price to about $3,000, The Seattle Times reported (http://goo.gl/JCpgg9).
"We thought we should concoct an alternative that would work as well," said Dr. Robert Wood, a University of Washington HIV/AIDS researcher who volunteers with the group. "It does work as well." Doctors in Oregon have also adopted the drug mixture. Officials in California, where a similar law takes effect later this year, are considering it as well.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals and other drugmakers have come under fire from Congress for buying up old drugs and hiking prices many times over what patients had paid for years. Last year, it acquired the rights to Seconal, the trade name of secobarbital sodium, the most commonly prescribed drug used by terminally ill patients to end their lives under the law.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Right-to-die-group-comes-up-with-new-cheaper-7225482.php
= new reply since forum marked as read
Asphyxiation by nitrous oxide.
Not sure what that would cost in todays dollars or how many cans of whip cream it would take.
