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The Pharmaceuticals Business is Responsible for a Rash Of Deaths in This Country; U.S. Citizens Guinea Pigs.

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The pharmaceuticals business has become a living, breathing monster in recent years.

Drug companies spend millions upon millions of dollars to market the latest development drug, all so they can rake it back in when a patient goes to his doctor to request that particular medicine.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being completely informed about decisions regarding your health and well being.

It is a good idea to know the advancements in medication therapy that might improve your condition and lifestyle.

But you can’t make an informed decision based on a pretty 30 second sound bite.

Sadly, when you delve into the information about many of these pills being shamelessly plugged between singers on American Idol, the pharmaceuticals business insures that it can be nearly impossible to find accurate information about drugs hitting the market.

“Drug companies are accused today of endangering public health through wide-scale marketing malpractices, ranging from covertly attempting to persuade consumers that they are ill to bribing doctors and misrepresenting the results of safety and efficacy tests on their products.”

– Drug Firms a Danger to Health.

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The Mathy Downing Story

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How Much is Enough?

Last year, the drug company Merck had $22 Billion in revenue and a $5.5 Billion operating budget.

These are numbers from a company that had to recall its wonder drug Vioxx in 2005 after people started dying.

Pfizer, every old man’s favorite company because they developed Viagra, operates on a budget of $8.1 Billion with $48 Billion in revenue.

Eli Lilly and Company, keeping the world in a good mood through Prozac, weighs in at a paltry $2.9 Billion budget with $18.6 Billion set back in revenue.

It is not tough to see with these numbers that the pharmaceuticals business translates to big business. So, where does this money come from and where does it go?

In the case of Eli Lilly and Merck, more often than not, it goes to attorney fees.

Eli Lilly was taken to the Kentucky Supreme Court and ordered to pay an undisclosed amount of money because a man taking Prozac opened fire at his workplace, killing 7 people and injuring 12 others.

“Prozac, the only antidepressant certified as safe for children, may make kids more suicidal…

“A large new study added to previous research on Prozac shows that kids taking the drug have about a 50% higher risk of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts than those getting placebos.”

– Prozac Linked to Child. Suicide Risk.

Merck, on the other hand, voluntarily withdrew the analgesic Vioxx after it showed an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes for some people.

In 2008, the company was found liable for deceptive marketing practices and was ordered to pay in $50 million spread over 30 states where the ads ran.

“If you think the list of unsafe drugs is limited to what Dr. David Graham revealed in Congress, five more drugs in addition to Vioxx (Bextra, Accutane, Crestor, Meridia and Serevent), you had better think twice.

“There are more drugs than these that are unsafe.

“If you or your loved ones take prescription drugs, you need to know which ones are unsafe from an unbiased source (not the FDA).”

– Diagnosis: Corruption.

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Confessions of Ex Drug Pusher

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Is there a Pill for Pharmaceuticals Business Greed?

“As a doctor herself [Marcia Angell] and formerly editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, a top U.S. medical journal, she argues that drug companies are simply not the innovative, risk-taking, entrepreneurial and virtuous powerhouses that they pretend to be.

” “This is an industry that in some ways is like the Wizard of Oz, still full of bluster but now being exposed as something far different from its image”, she writes.

“Instead of being an engine of innovation, it is a vast marketing machine.

“Instead of being a free-market success story, it lives off government-funded research and monopoly rights.

“Prozac was the first of a whole generation of drugs known as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. But in 2001, its patent expired.

“That meant generic companies could make the drug too, and the U.S. price fell by about 80 per cent.

“So Prozac’s original exclusive makers, Eli Lilly, no longer poured money into marketing it for depression.

“(Instead, they were busy repackaging it in a lavender-and-pink capsule and touting it under a new name, Sarafem, for a brand-new illness, “premenstrual dysphoric disorder”, under brand-new patent protection, but that’s another story).

“By then, the makers of Paxil and Zoloft were eagerly promoting their “new” depression drugs.

“Only, according to Angell, there wasn’t very much new about them.

“They are what are known in the trade as “me too” drugs, because they’re just variations on an old theme, not genuinely novel products.

” “This is one of the reasons”, Angell says, “that drug companies lavish so much creativity and money on marketing: They need to convince you to spend several times more for a drug still under patent when a generic version might do just as well”.”

– Is There A Pill For Greed.

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Blood Money

“Vast numbers of dead, the compromising of key elements within the medical community and its regulatory structures, the blind pursuit of billions of dollars in corporate profits, all have surfaced in a detonating pharmaceutical industry scandal of global dimension.”

– Drug Industry Scandal a “Crisis”.

While the pharmaceuticals business spends a lot on television marketing and class action lawsuits, they spend an equal amount of money bribing physicians to prescribe their particular drugs.

It is not uncommon to walk into a hospital on any given day and see nurses and aides eating lunch provided by a drug rep. In most cases, you will probably run into one.

Doctors routinely sign their orders with pens promoting a medication, and take treatment notes on similar memo pads.

In some cases, drug representatives charter fishing boats and arrange hunting trips to get their product into the hands of Americans nationwide.

And where does this money come from?

The insurance companies complain routinely about the rising cost of health care and yet approve unnecessary medicinal treatment options while raising their premiums on a regular basis.

So, when it comes to who’s really buying and selling while the pharmaceuticals business eats high on the hog; the answer is you, the hard working American who only wants to be healthy.

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