Informative Speech: The Epipen

Great Essays
Introduction:
I. Attention Getter: Nicole Levin, a 41 year old New Yorker, was leaving the dentist when it happened. Her throat began to swell and breathing became difficult. She could not swallow and she felt extremely nauseous. Levin knew at this point what was happening. She was having an allergic reaction to medication the dentists prescribed her. Frantically searching in her purse, she clutched her EpiPen and she could breathe again. Nicole’s story, found on CNN, published by Jacqueline Howard, on August 25, 2016, along with many other headlines about the EpiPen all indicated that the EpiPen is a necessity for people who face situations like Levin and Mylan, the company who sells them, is a monopoly of this life-saving creation.
II. Thesis: Many people are affected by the enormous price hike of the EpiPen.
…show more content…
Relevance to Audience: The EpiPen is used for treating anaphylaxis which is a life- threatening allergic reaction. According to the 2013 article, “Anaphylaxis in America: The prevalence and characteristics of anaphylaxis in the United States,” conducted by the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, between 1.6% and 5.1% of Americans face anaphylaxis. That means it occurs in nearly 1-in-50 Americans and is getting closer to 1-in-20 Americans. For those of you who did not already realize you are a victim of anaphylaxis, you could be or know one of the many who are. Someday you, or someone you care about, could need an EpiPen to treat anaphylaxis and this price increase can affect you

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Wouldn’t you like to take a prescription drug for those constant headaches you get everyday?Well just take Nalfon it will help you settle your relief in just one hour. Oh but I forgot to mention you will experience dizziness, you may feel faint, nausea, vomiting, stomach aches, and heart pain, but at least you won 't have a headache anymore. Prescription drugs are televised, but by the FDA makes you to tell the symptoms,however they say them quickly so it 's easy to miss. Advertising prescription drugs does make you more aware, but it also yields for more damage. By advertising prescription drugs we are allowing our consumers to be aware, but it then leads us to wasting the government 's money and our money for things that we thought would…

    • 2270 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The United States have spent far more money on the health care than any other countries. At 17.1% of their gross domestic product on health care, the United States devoted at least 50 percent more of its economy to health care than do other countries (Squires &Anderson, 2015). Even with so much spending on healthcare, people in the United States are still unable to afford the health care prices, particularly the need for prescription drugs. It is difficult for consumers who have already spent money on health coverage, and with high drug cost due to pharmaceuticals’ regulation on price increased the burden for patients to afford the drugs that they need. Drugs are created and manufactured by the pharmaceutical companies where they have the authority…

    • 1525 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Ethical Ethics Of Epipen

    • 1698 Words
    • 7 Pages

    If you ask me that 's kind of suspicious. If we look deeper into Mylan having these rights to being the main creators of epinephrine we can see why they have created such a distant price. They can say that they are the best and no one can compete blah blah blah. But in the end, the same product they charged two sum odd hundred dollars for is now a ridiculous six hundred plus dollars. This raises a red flag to a deontologist but to the government, it is completely legal and allowed.…

    • 1698 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A drug named Daraprim price was raised by 5000%, from $13.50 to $750 per pill. Many cases similar to Daraprim have happened, and a pattern of massive price increase of many life saving drugs by pharmaceutical companies becomes apparent. Expensive drugs had forced patients to make difficult choices, either to cut down basic needs to save money to buy the needed drugs, or to cut down the use of the drugs itself. Americans start blaming drug companies of price gouging and call for drug prices regulation by government. Drug companies, on the other hand, blame health insurance companies for shifting the cost of purchasing drugs to patients.…

    • 1043 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Americans use more prescription drugs than any other developed country. Prescription drugs only represent 12 percent of total health care costs in the United States, but the rising prices of those drugs is an issue that keeps reoccurring not only for patients, but for prescribers, payers, and policy makers. There are people that believe that the rise in price of these drugs is appropriate, but if they keep on rising in price, the United States will start suffering not only financially but medically. Despite a lot of other aspects of the economy rising in price, pharmaceutical drugs should be lowered, or should at least be kept at a reasonable rate. The rise in prices of prescription drugs is an issue that does not seem to be going away…

    • 2472 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Tiffany, I found your post to be very informative. I would like to add that C. diff can become very dangerous according to The Mayo Clinic, it can cause kidney failure and inflammation in the colon. Other symptoms include diarrhea, blood in the stool, weight loss, nausea, and pus in the stool. As you had mentioned in your post C. diff is more prominently seen in patients who’ve been in the hospital and who have been on antibiotics. I found it interesting to read in Science daily that C. diff reoccurs in 20 percent of patients who have suffered from the disease.…

    • 128 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    I believe that the government should regulate the sales of epipens because the “Mylan” company has a monopoly on them and is unfairly controlling the price. The price of epipens has been raised over 400% in the past few years because Mylan’s one competitor had a recall due to possible errors in drug dosage. The drug used in epipens, epinephrine, is inexpensive and each epipen carries only a dollars worth. The injector itself is bought by Mylan from a manufacturer for only $34.50 per pen!…

    • 1585 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I bet aAlmost everyone in here has gotten vaccinated before which is great! Unfortunately, 3 million people die from a vaccine-preventable disease each year. That huge amount of 3 million people believe that vaccinations do nothing but bad to you or have no access to vaccine clinics and doctors. The importance of getting vaccinated protects those who are unable to get vaccinated and isn’t just some fluid that is injected into your skin. Let’s break down how a vaccination actually works.…

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Topic: Stress Audience: Audience is somewhat knowledgeable about stress. Learn: What stress is? What causes stress?…

    • 839 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Epipens haven't always been this expensive around 2010 the price was about one hundred dollars. Since 2008 the company “Mylan's” only competitor has gone out of business leaving them with a monopoly like control over the life saving medical device. The company stated “we've made a significant investment in the past years to support and improve the device.” Many allergist who work with the epipens daily have said that there is little to no change in the Epipen. Mylan has distributed over 650,000 free epipens to schools to hopefully prevent kids with unknown allergies to go without.…

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Epipen Case Study

    • 1781 Words
    • 8 Pages

    It is estimated that there are currently 43 million Americans at risk of anaphylaxis, a life-threatening allergic reaction (“Mylan’s Commitment,” 2016). The majority of these people are in constant possession of an EpiPen, an auto-injector containing epinephrine used to reverse anaphylaxis (“Anaphylaxis,” 2016). However, in recent years the price of the EpiPen has increased substantially; a two-pack currently costs $609 (Pollack, 2016). Because Mylan commands around 85 percent of the epinephrine auto-injector market, almost all of those at risk have been affected (Herrick, 2016: 2). Concerns about drug price increases, like the EpiPen’s, have caused confusion in many people.…

    • 1781 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    (Attention Getter) Let’s go for a walk into a grocery store, what item grabs your attention? Well, if you 're a compulsive buyer you’ll probably get it or you may stay away. The chances are that item that you got or wanted to get had a good amount of delicious sugar in it. (Reveal Topic)…

    • 1511 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    "If you knew I was HIV positive would you still treat me as an equal, would you still be my friend, would you still touch me, would you still love me?” These are some of the thoughts that go through the minds of the millions of people worldwide who are currently living with HIV/AIDS. Despite the mass impact of the disease, many still remain ignorant to its definition, history, and effects, leading to the negative associations of those affected. I’m here to give you a brief enlightenment of HIV/AIDS in an effort to to lessen the misconceptions and stigma of HIV/ AIDS. First, we need to understand the basics.…

    • 1048 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Attention Grabber: Many of you in this room are planning to one day have children. Whether it’s your own future child or even someone close to you, wouldn’t you want them to be safe and prevent them from future illnesses? Well, you can! Vaccines are one of the greatest ways to protect people from diseases.…

    • 950 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Did you know that smoking can cause over 13 types of cancer? People should not smoke because it causes cancer, it can kill people, and tobacco products are expensive furthermore if you smoke you run the risk of getting cancer. Cancer is a deadly incurable disease. If you smoke you have a 9 out of 10 chance of death. Tobacco is very expensive, an average pack of cigarettes is $5.00.…

    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays