If the food-industrial complex had not flooded the nation's food supply with junk, if the government actively encouraged healthy lifestyles, and if efforts to address the obesity crisis didn't rely solely on 'miracle weight loss drugs' pushed by the pharmaceutical industry, then maybe - just maybe - politicians wouldn't be clamoring on Capitol Hill, or the elderly (somewhat senile) president in the White House, about out-of-control drug prices.

But since common sense has vanished in America and folks have given up on Peloton bikes for $1,000 monthly injections of "Wegovy," the blockbuster weight loss treatment (also a diabetes drug called "Ozempic") from Novo Nordisk, then socialists, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wouldn't be reviving the discussion about high drug prices. 

"Today, a new Yale study found that Ozempic costs less than $5 a month to manufacture. And yet, Novo Nordisk charges Americans nearly $1,000 a month for this drug, while the same exact product can be purchased for just $155 a month in Canada and just $59 in Germany," Sanders said in a statement.

Sanders cited the study "Estimated Sustainable Cost-Based Prices for Diabetes Medicines," conducted by researchers at Yale University, King's College Hospital in London, and the nonprofit Doctors Without Borders. It was published in the journal JAMA Network Open on Wednesday. 

In the study, researchers found Novo could produce the blockbuster drug for 89 cents to $4.73 per month, as opposed to the monthly retail price of about $1,349 for Wegovy, a semaglutide injection. 

"As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), I am calling on Novo Nordisk to lower the list price of Ozempic — and the related drug Wegovy — in America to no more than what they charge for this drug in Canada," Sander said.