BHS – 8A – America Drug Makers | This Week's ‘World in Review’

With Southwests announcement yesterday, all airlines are now the same. America is running out of generic drug makers. Another one in on the brink. The show closes with this week’s ‘World in Review.’  

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demandfrom KFI AM six forty, and this
is KFI AM six forty Bill Handlehere. It is a Friday morning,
foody Friday. What am I doinghere at eight o'clock hour? Yeah,
airplanes? I got it, Igot it. I was just talking to

(00:22):
Amy and we were talking about thecontest and and you know, sometimes the
show gets in the way of ourconversations. I mean it really does,
and this is one of those times. All Right, it's a non foody
Friday. Neil comes back on Wednesday, and Southwest announced something and it's one
of the come on, really,please please the humanity of it. No,

(00:44):
No, here's what they did.They said that there's no longer first
come, first serve seating. Butthere really isn't anyway. See, it
used to be you'd show up andthen they would do the A, B
and C ales or groups of people, and then if you book early,

(01:06):
you get in the A section,which means you board first and you can
sit anywhere you want once you're onthe airplane, and the seats open up
twenty four hours before and by twelveoh one A and B are gone.
That's midnight. And then if youwere a frequent flyer something, you're using
their credit card, then you automaticallygot in the first section. So it

(01:27):
really it's been a long time sinceit was truly first come, first serve,
and people would be lining up anhour before and there'd be the big
line and people just get on theairplane. Well, those are done.
Those days are done. Now youare going to have assigned seating, and
air travel just isn't the same nowthe flights are crowded. You know,

(01:53):
what used to be meals. Younow get peanuts, except you don't do
peanuts because of the peanut allergy,so you do those prets, little tiny
pretzels. Even in first class.Unless you're flying at meal times, you're
not going to get a meal,and that used to always be the case.
And when you do get the meal, it's certainly not what it used
to be. Even the paid meals. When they first started, you buy

(02:14):
a sandwich, they were really good. You'd pay eight or nine bucks for
a sandwich. Those aren't good anymore. It's you know, it's just not
the same. In the nineteen andnineteen eighties and nineties, the way I
we'll get away with this, becauseplanes were less jam packed open seating there

(02:36):
you just felt like there was justa bigger airplane with open seating. You'd
sort of choose where you sit.There would be you ready for this.
They used to have roads here Iremember this, where the rose would go
backwards. One seat, one groupof seats would go forward, the other
backwards, so people could actually talkto each other. Here's one for you.

(03:00):
NNTAL Airlines, which doesn't exist anymore. You could fly and there was
a lounge in the back of theairplane, a bar with couches and a
bartender and you'd go back there andit was like a little bar where you'd
sit and talk. And that wentaway pretty quickly, didn't it. Yeah,

(03:23):
you bet, you know. Itstill has that. I think Singapore
Airlines has those in first class whereyou pay, you know, twenty eight
thousand dollars for a one way tripto Singapore, and it is it is
just changed. And this is justemblematic of what is going on. It
has made flying, this last littlesection of flying, just the whole experience

(03:46):
has absolutely got awful, miserable.It's a flying actually used to be a
joy, not only a joy,It was considered a big, big thing.
People would wear suits. A manwouldn't dream of getting on an airplane
without a coat and tie. Itwas a serious experience. The seats used

(04:08):
to be wide, you'd have legroom. A lot of people aren't alive
that can remember that. There usedto be dozens of medium sized airlines servicing
the United States. Now you don'thave them at all. Now it's the
big three, and the small airlinesthat do crop up are instantly killed by

(04:30):
the big carriers, who lower theirprices until such time as the small airlines
go out of business. And ifyou're going to try to go, for
example, from here to Las Vegasand use Hollywood Burbank, I can't even
tell you the cost. So I'moff to Las Vegas next month with my
daughter. We're doing a foody weekendand I'm flying US. I was going

(04:54):
to fly out of Burbank after ashow. Instead I booked through Lax.
The worst error at the wor airporton the planet. And why is that?
Because I think the flight from Burbankto Las Vegas because I didn't book
it because it was too expensive.I think it was three seventy one way
and out of LAX same flight aboutthe same time one hundred and twenty nine

(05:16):
dollars one way. So going outa good airport read small regional airport is
going to cost you a fortune unlessyou have zillions of planes flying out of
there from different companies. I mean, the whole thing is gone to hell
in a handbasket. I mean reallytough stuff. All right, now,
I'm gonna give you some more goodnews. I always liked Friday because we

(05:40):
keep Fridays light and fun. Andlet me tell you about how America is
running out of generic drugs, orat least generic drug makers. And let
me start with You're gonna die.And what do I mean by that?
It's always good news on Friday?Right, You're probably gonna die by next
week. There is a factory innortheastern Tennessee and it is huge, at

(06:06):
one of the last in the countrythat makes medicine. Now what kind of
medicine it makes? A moxicillin.The company is US Antibiotics, churns about
turns out about a million doses ofa moxicillin every day. But it looks

(06:28):
like it's going to close down becausethey can't charge enough to cover the overhead.
Why because competitors are selling the productfor less and they're the creators of
the product. But the problems arein America. That's their problem. And
Pete this is they pay high wagesrelative to Tennessee. And it was about

(06:51):
to go into bankruptcy two years ago, and there was a businessman, Rick
Jackson, who rescued it two yearsago. He's put more than thirty eight
million into the plant referred machine yetand he's about to lose it. Because
what's happening is the generic drug businesshas become a hostile environment for American companies.

(07:13):
By the way, a maxicillin.If I'm sure you have gotten a
prescription for a max ocillin, mostof us have. For example, if
you've ever had an STD, thedoctor will give you a prescription for a
max oficillin. And I've had myshare, by the way, I've had
more than a little bit of moxicillinput into my body and it works from

(07:33):
what I understand, at least that'swhat they tell me. So anyway,
Rick Chance Jackson put this money intothis place, and even with that,
it's going south. And here's whatelse is happening, because they just can't
compete with foreign competitors who make drugsoverseas. And even though those drugs are

(07:58):
tested by THEA and they have tobe cleared by the FDA, it's a
lot cheaper over there. They don'thave the same requirements people and here people
work in these generic companies. Manufacturingcompanies make money. As a matter of
fact, let me tell you whatthis company did us antibiotics. When it

(08:18):
started and it opened up its plant, it paid twice minimum wage to begin
with. That's equivalent to today what'sa minimum wage today, sixteen eighty or
something. So that's a starting salaryof thirty three dollars an hour. That
is what they paid. How doyou compete with that when in India they're
paying someone thirty three cents an hour. You can't. And then the other

(08:39):
issue we're looking at is drug shortages. Boy, that they become common.
You know, it used to bethere was no such thing as drug shortages.
Well before the pandemic. Could youimagine going to the grocery store and
seeing empty shelves. That never happened. And now if you see an empty
shelf, you know that's common.It doesn't exist. The world has changed,

(09:03):
so now we have drug shortages.We talked to Jim Keeney about that
and even here's even what three hundredmedicines now and hospitals and patients have to
scramble to find doses of the drugsthey need. And it's just one small
problem. The pinch supply chain ora quality problem shuts down. It's like

(09:28):
Abbott, who makes manufacturers the babyformula powder and is eighty percent of the
entire market in the United States,and all of a sudden it gets a
flood. I think it was nearChicago, and the plant shuts down,
and now no one can find thatstuff. It becomes gold. They've sold
this plant over and over again.Now, this plant in this area was

(09:52):
the biggest employer that they had.The factory sponsored children's baseball team teams,
fundraisers for the United Way, organizedcollections for the local food bank, sponsored
orgies where they gave away free samplesof a marxiscillin to prove that it works.

(10:13):
I mean, it was part ofthe community. And those days are
gone. Globalization pricing pressure and alot of major drug companies are buying these
generics. Generics used to be alot cheaper. Now they are very expensive.
Why because the major drug companies arebuying them. So it's all gone

(10:35):
to hell in a hand mask becausethey charged more money. And to give
you an idea ambient zolpidem, whichI take right. It's the generic version
of ambient. Costco sells it forthirty pills thirteen bucks, and I called
the CBS a few months ago.They wanted one hundred and twenty six dollars

(10:58):
for the same generic product. Theprices are all over the place now when
it comes to brand name drugs,new drugs. You know, if you
want to have sex in a bathtubwith your wife and hold hands because there
are two bathtubs, figure out howI've never figured out how do you have
sex when you're sitting in a bathtubnext to someone sitting in another bathtub and

(11:20):
you're out there looking at the sky. How do you stoop like that?
And just made a gesture that wouldstop us from ever broadcasting again on this
show, And thank you, You'vemade my morning. So the point is
is that it's not just the ridiculousprice that big Pharma is charging. Oh,

(11:45):
by the way, do you rememberthe commercials that talked about hepse how
they drug cures hepsi, hepatitis C. They actually have a cure for hepatitis
C not a vaccine, not asymptom cover upper eight cure and it's twelve
weeks, but they don't tell youit's one hundred thousand dollars for the course.

(12:07):
Oh yeah, forgot to do that. And when you look at commercials
having sex in a bathtub, oryou have some kind of a gastrointestinal problem
where you have uncontrolled diarrhea all daylong and you are looking for bathrooms,
you see those. The drug itselfis a fortune. They don't tell you
that. So what Jim would probablytell you, you don't get a bottle

(12:31):
of pepto bismol, do yourself afavor. Okay, So let me go
through and we have a few minutesto go on this week's World and Review.
The last few weeks have been nothingshort of astounding in terms of news
cycles, I mean just crazy allstarting with what is it three weeks ago

(12:52):
when the debate happened between Trump andBiden, and that started the cascade,
the snow all just started moving justlightning speed. And so as soon as
Joe Biden fill well, even beforehe finished the debate, I mean,
he imploded. He melted down duringthe debate and the argument that he was

(13:16):
too old, which was the biggestproblem he had in terms of the electorate.
Too old, that really doesn't havethe acuity, the cognitive abilities.
Boy, that was just amplified.That just went crazy. And then it
started that Monday. It grew largerand larger and larger and more and more
people as well as Democrats, Republicansdon't count because they want the president under

(13:39):
any circumstances. Well, actually theywanted Biden in because he was so much
easier to beat. Donald Trump wantedhim in. But he caved under the
pressure. He couldn't deal with withanymore, and he said, Okay,
I'm done, I'm out. InKamala Harris within a matter of twenty four
hours basically got the nomination, whichmakes a lot of sense. And then
the assassination at eempt. I mean, it was completely insane. So the

(14:03):
last part of it is Biden isout. Did he want to go out?
No? No, he thought hecould stay. He thought he could
do the job. He can't.He can't. But then again, I'm
going to give him a pass onthis because it is hard for anybody to
think that I no longer am ableto do the job. Talked anybody talked

(14:26):
any elderly person who said you can'tdrive anymore, you can't live by yourself
anymore. Very few people, veryfew people are willing to take that.
And then as a result of theassassination attempt, there was a lot of
pressure with the Secret Service Director KimberlyCheetle. The Secret Service screwed the prooch

(14:48):
on this one. There's no questionabout that. When you look at the
shooter, this young man crooks.He was on the roof four hundred feet
away from a Donald Trump and thestage in the rally, the open air
stage, the open air rally,and people saw him on the roof.
The authority saw him there an hourbefore. I mean, they knew he

(15:11):
was there, and they just saidhe wasn't enough a threat. The point
is is that I don't know whetherCheatle is at fault at all, but
some heads have to roll, andhers did the day before she resigned.
Same thing with Joe Biden. Iwill not resign. I am here,
I am staying, and I wonderthe last I am staying how many days

(15:33):
it was from the last I amstaying. Joe Biden wise to okay,
I'm out. I think that wasonly a matter of a few days.
With cheatle it was one day sheis not leaving, she will not resign.
Next day, I am leaving.I am resigning. And inevitably,

(15:54):
the same reason is always given whenyou have a CEO that has to resign
under pressure, or you have somekind of a scandal, or you have
some governmental agency like in this case, is I am leaving not because I'm
at fault. It's because I don'twant to be a distraction. Okay.
And even with President Biden, believeme, he didn't say, nor would

(16:18):
you expect him to, I justdon't have it anymore. And the people
around him, we're talking about thethirty or forty Democratic leaders, congress people
and senators and senior members of hisstaff who told him to leave. It
was never about you don't have theacuity, you don't have the ability to
do this job. It was alwaysyou don't have a path to win against

(16:44):
Donald Trump. It's not a matterof why, it's you don't have a
path to win, and we needyou out. And he said, I
am leaving because of my party,of my country, and understood that part.
He understood I don't have a pathenough of a politician, and frankly,

(17:07):
I thought that the amount of supporthe had right from the beginning of
this second go round was inappropriate.But you don't tell a sitting president who
was automatically going to get the nominationanyway, because that's just the way it
works. How do you say,you really aren't up to the standards that

(17:29):
we need as president, you don'thave the ability to do it. That's
a very tough one, all right. There was a Nepal Nepal plane crash.
Now eighteen people died and a smallplane skidded off the runway. But
it was when you saw that thevideo of this plane actually was taking off
and then it came down. Itwas a few hundred feet above the ground

(17:51):
and then it sort of augured in, went to its side and just went
crashing down the video. Is therereason I bring it up is extraor and
the raighteen people aboard once survived thepilot that was it and that's just worth
seeing the video. That's why Ibring it up. And also on the
climate change really isn't here front,Sunday was the hottest day in recorded history,

(18:17):
according to the climate tracking agency thathas been monitoring temperature since the mid
nineteen hundreds, and it, boywas it hot. I mean across the
world the hottest day. One hundredcities across the US experienced their hottest start
to summer on record. I mean, it is really crazy out there.
And Amy, are we done?I always turned to Amy in terms of

(18:41):
the weather because she covers it.I don't. Today, hot heat spells
still with us. The heat advisoriesare gone, so we're cooling down a
bit and then we'll be a coupledegrees cooler. Tomorrow's still going to be
like seventies to low one hundreds,but the heat advisory seventies to low one
hundreds. Yesterday I happened to beWoodland Hills going out there to the visit

(19:02):
to see my kids. One hundredand five degrees, one hundred and five
degrees, and my best friend Sapo, who lives in Las Vegas, well
one hundred and fifteen. It hita record one hundred and eighteen this week.
I don't know if you've if you'veever been in that kind of heat,

(19:23):
it's when you step outside the house. It's like someone is taking a
hair dryer, putting it on hot, full blast, and putting it right
up to your face. So that'sgood news on that front, isn't it.
Also Benjamin Natanyahu, the Prime Ministerof Israel, came and spoke in
front of the Joint Session of Congress, the first person in history to speak

(19:48):
four times. He's been invited tospeak to Congress, to the American people,
and we were told his advisors,his folks, said it was going
to be more of a conciliatory speechbecause it's a lot of pressure to now
negotiate a peace in the Middle East, certainly in the Gaza Israeli war.
Because member Israel lost twelve hundred ofbit citizens and its soldiers in the initial

(20:12):
attack October seventh, another two hundredand change we're taking prisoner hostage. Of
those, most have died already.They just found another four bodies. I
don't know how many are alive.So there's a lot of pressure to negotiate
a cease fire. Okay, SoIsrael has lost thirteen fourteen hundred people on

(20:34):
the Palestinian side. In Gaza,it's forty thousand people. And I am
straight out gonna blame Hamas on thisone. Israelis are not doing a good
job in terms of humanitarian aid they'relying about that straight out. Oh no,
we get lots of human humanitarian aid. We're not blocking any of the

(20:55):
entry points. Yes they are.They're making it miserable. A lot of
civilians are dying. But remember it'sHamas that is putting themselves in the middle
of civilians, launching weapons, rockets, military installations in the hospital right there.
So what do you want Israel todo? All right? So Netanyahu

(21:17):
was given a hero's welcome by theRepublicans or very pro Israel. Fifty Democrats
in fact did boycott it. OneRepublican and that you don't usually see happen.
And then representative to leave. Idon't even know her first name.
I think she's out back East.He's the FDA Rashida. Yeah, she's
the first and only Palestinian American congressperson, I think. And she was

(21:42):
there with her little placard that saidwar criminal. And Okay, this is
one of those things I wish MikeJohnson would be able to just toss people
out for violating decorum. Marjorie TaylorGreen heckling the President during the State to
the Union. Just you can't dothat, and Johnson just you throw people

(22:03):
out. That's all. You know, it doesn't matter what political side you're
on, you don't put signs upthat call a speaker a war criminal.
And when they're at the invitation ofUS Congress and you don't scream at the
President and yell at the top ofyour lungs, you're a liar. Not
in Congress. I mean the dayswhen the State of the Union was a
somber affair, where it was seriousstuff. Those a's are gone. Everything

(22:26):
is gone. As a matter offact, this show is gone until Monday,
and so we're coming back on Monday. Neil's still not going to be
here. So it's Amy and mebecause we're going to be doing wake Up
Call, which we do, Ohno, excuse me. We do Handle
on the News from six two,seven eight. You can join me for
wake Up Call if you want.There's no chance. Amy starts at five

(22:48):
am with wake Up Call and thenwe go on to nine o'clock. So
tomorrow morning, Handle on the Laweight o'clock. Well, first it starts
with Dean Sharp at six am toeight and Handle on the Law. Have
a good weekend, everybody. KFIAM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
app. You've been listening to TheBill Handle Show. Catch My Show Monday

(23:11):
through Friday six am to nine am, and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app