165 Prescription Drugs

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">No industry has so completely captured its regulators as the pharmaceutical companies. Hidden agendas are in every public pronouncement: drugs need to be expensive to fund research into new ones, foreign drugs can't be trusted, drug trials must be large & time-consuming, government cannot negotiate drug prices, patents may be allowed for drug tweaks, and other subtle monopolistic manipulations. No drug regulation exists except to make pharmaceutical companies wealthier, that's why they are the most profitable business sector this century, and they use the tools of modern marketing to make it that way.</p> <p>In fact, most of what American pharmaceutical companies say is misleading or outright lies: they are not the world-leading innovators they claim to be. 2 of the top 3 largest drug companies are Swiss, half of the top 10 are from countries with socialized medicine, and foreign drug companies spend significantly more on R&D. The sorry situation is that the U.S. is one of the only nations that allow drug advertising, 25% of their revenue, twice the amount they spend on R&D, and mostly they don't even do their own research, instead buying patents from the universities & start-ups. Pharmaceutical companies can get away with this outrage because America accepts marketing, encourages business & is given the panacea of generic drugs to offset the commercialism. For example: Liptor is $194 but its generic is only $16; Plavic is $205 verses $13 for the generic; and the common antibiotic, Cipro, goes from $52 to $7. But generic drugs are mostly a smokescreen: pharmaceuticals simply pay the generic manufacturers not to make drugs. Also, drug lobbyists have corrupted congress to bar import of generics from Europe; even Canadian generics are prohibited. Further legislative corruption actually forbids government from negotiating lower prices for U.S. drugs via normal volume purchases that all other countries benefit from.</p> <p>Even more insidious: since a one-time treatment that cures a patient is not very profitable, drug companies want people to take the drugs more often, preferable forever. Pharmaceutical-financed medical studies have been methodically lowering treatment thresholds in an attempt to include more-n-more people in the lifetime prescription market. Regulatory oversight is captured such that drugs do not need to exhibit any efficacy, and their price is hidden because the hospitals are given steeply discounted versions but the patient's insurance is expected to pay the full premium. And all of this overlooks the fact that most, if not the vast majority, of drugs don't work for most people. There are efficacious drugs, it's better now than the Dark Ages, but mostly what we're getting is a placebo with side-effects. We all want to live forever & will believe anything to do so, especially if we never see the bill.</p>