Are you f*cking kidding me!?

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to a drug called Malarone.

Malarone (from Wikipedia): "The drug combination atovaquone/proguanil (INNs, trade names Malarone, Malanil) is an antimalarial medication used in both the treatment and prevention of malaria, commercially available from GlaxoSmithKline since 2000."

 

Why am I on about drugs? Because I just had a heart attack. You need one of these per adult per day  to prevent you from contracting Malaria. Which is all nice and well, and I really really don't want to get Malaria - we need 4 boxes for the two of us - but the "problem" is the price.

You see, a box of this costs 63$. SIXTY-THREE US Dollars.

And the amount on the photo is enough for 12 days. So, to be guaranteed malaria-free, you'd need (approximately) two and a half of these per month.

To put things into perspective, a gram of the active ingredients in the pill costs 15 USD.

To put THAT into perspective, a gram of investment-grade gold at todays spot price costs 53 USD. A gram of 999 silver is 0.96 USD.

Dear Glaxo-Smith-Kline, are you fucking kidding me? I am all for "free market" etc., but this - this is insane. Okay, yes, it's the "good" anti-Malaria drug, but hey, the other one makes most people hallucinate, so this is what you really want. Now, tell me, how is the average person in Africa supposed to afford this?!

Not cool Pharma. Not cool. And remember people, this is the GOOD stuff... "Among adults who received MALARONE for treatment of malaria, attributable adverse experiences that occurred in ≥5% of patients were abdominal pain (17%), nausea (12%), vomiting (12%), headache (10%), diarrhea (8%), asthenia (8%), anorexia (5%), and dizziness (5%)." 

The "bad" stuff will... well... Mefloquine... "Neuropsychiatric effects are reported with mefloquine use.^[1] The FDA product guide states it can cause mental health problems, including anxiety, hallucinations, depression, unusual behavior, and suicidal ideations, among others.^[8] Some have reported severe central nervous system events requiring hospitalization in about one in 10,000 people taking mefloquine for malaria prevention, with milder events (e.g., dizziness, headache, insomnia, and vivid dreams) in up to 25%.^[10] When some measure of subjective severity is applied to the rating of adverse events, about 11-17% of travelers are incapacitated to some degree.^[3]"