Letters: The outrageous costs of prescription drugs

Want to save a life while simultaneously taking down a rapacious drug company [“EpiPen highlights system problems,” Editorial, Aug. 26]?

Ask your doctor to prescribe a vial of epinephrine and a tuberculin syringe, and teach you how to use them. Cost of materials: less than $10.

Dr. Daryl Altman, Lynbrook

Editor’s note: The writer is a board-certified allergist.

It’s a shame when drugmakers set mammoth price hikes on life-saving drugs for no apparent reason other than greed.

Mylan, whose chief executive is Heather Bresch, unmercifully raised the price of the EpiPen more than 400 percent, and Turing Pharmaceuticals, whose chief executive was Martin Shkreli, raised the price of Daraprim by more than 5,000 percent. They should be treated as criminals.

The Food and Drug Administration should come down with an iron hand and force them to pay stiff penalties for their crimes against humanity.

Mick Du Russel, Lake Ronkonkoma

It might be time for all of us to just accept that money rules all in the United States. Forget about fighting big business.

Want to charge a few hundred dollars for a lifesaving EpiPen? Go ahead.

Want to charge a few thousand for Thiola, a drug to prevent kidney stones? It would be legal. Make that money for yourself and your shareholders.

Privatize health care in jails? Privatize jails? No problem. Use private testing companies to evaluate teachers and students? Be my guest. Do I sound cynical? Maybe. Convince me that I’m wrong.

Jeff Korn, East Patchogue