What if lifesaving prescriptions were affordable for all? | Kiah Williams

TED Talks Daily

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2020

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As prescription drug costs skyrocket in the US, thousands of people are forced to forgo lifesaving medications -- all while manufacturers and health care facilities systematically destroy perfectly good, surplus pills. Kiah Williams shares how SIRUM -- a nonprofit that delivers unused medications to families who need them most -- plans to drive down prescription prices by recycling almost a billion dollars' worth of medications in the next five years. (This ambitious plan is a part of the Audacious Project, TED's initiative to inspire and fund global change.)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Elise Hugh with TED Talks Daily.
0:06.1	Today, a super cool idea to ensure people have access to the medicines they need to survive and thrive.
0:13.3	Kia Williams, the founder of the nonprofit serum, saw both a problem and a solution that exists in the pharmaceutical space,
0:21.3	and her idea links the two together.
0:25.4	She'll explain in her talk from TED 2020.
0:30.9	Every day in this country, families are forced to make impossible choices
0:35.7	when it comes to their health care.
0:38.2	Like Kimberly, who said,
0:41.1	There was times I had to choose between my food and my pills.
0:45.9	It wasn't luxury stuff because I didn't make that much.
0:49.2	It was like, can I get shampoo or conditioner?
0:52.8	Things you take for granted.
0:57.8	And Debbie, who said, you put your medicine in one hand, your living costs in the other. Okay, well, what am I going to do? Am I going to get my
1:06.3	medicine or am I going to pay my bills? Well, I can't live without my medicine,
1:11.9	but I can't live if I don't pay my bills.
1:15.4	10,000 people die every month in this country
1:19.0	because they don't take the medicine that they need.
1:22.8	More people die from not taking medications
1:25.4	than opioid overdoses and car accidents combined.
1:31.2	But you can't take medicine if you can't afford it. Today, the average household spends $3,000 a
1:40.1	year on medications. About a third of folks who are uninsured said that they stopped taking medicine as prescribed
1:48.5	because of cost.
	...

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