Today’s Dose offers a few money saving schemes, from tax transfers to forced price reductions.

— Alcohol might cause HIV infections to progress faster, new research shows. Infected people who consumed two or more alcoholic drinks per day experienced faster declines in CD4+ cell counts, whether or not they were receiving antiretroviral therapy. (Science Daily)

— Many US-based pharmaceutical companies are using elaborate tax schemes to shift sales of blockbuster drugs to countries with low tax rates, Bloomberg reports this week. For example, New York–based Forest Laboratories reportedly transferred revenue from its antidepressant Lexapro to Ireland, Amsterdam and Bermuda instead of the US, where the drug was purchased. Such corporate transfer pricing strategies purportedly save the industry — and, hence, cost the taxpayer — as much as $60 billion per year.

— In response to the financial crisis gripping southern Europe, Spanish officials announced plans to slash prices on numerous medications. The measure, which has been criticized by FarmaIndustria, the industry trade group, is expected to save roughly 1.3 billion Euros ($1.6 billion) annually. (Pharmalot)

— STEM CELLS CAN IMPROVE HEARING! If the work — which found that embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells could form sensory hair cells in the ears of mice — can be replicated in humans, researchers won’t need to shout the news anymore. (Reuters)

Image by ghat via Flickr Creative Commons