The Truth About Drug Companies--R&D, Marketing

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DR MARCIA AGNELL
Many Americans have wondered why prescription drugs have become so expensive while advertising for those drugs seems to grow exponentially. Former New England Journal of Medicine Editor Marcia Angell has some answers. The pharmaceutical industry, according to Angell, is fraught with corruption and doing a disservice to customers, the federal government, and to the medical establishment itself. In The Truth About the Drug Companies, Angell explains how a huge portion of the revenue generated by "Big Pharma" goes not into research and development but into aggressive marketing campaigns to sell their product. She describes how, even though the drug companies claim that it costs them an average of 802 million dollars per drug to develop new medicines, that figure is obscenely inflated since it factors in marketing as well as expected interest the company would have received had they invested the money in the open market. Meanwhile, Angell says, most of the R & D work is done by colleges and universities funded by the government. There are also problems with the drugs themselves, Angell indicates, since a majority are "me-too drugs", slightly modified versions of existing products which meant to address concerns of consumers most likely to spend money on pharmaceuticals. Thus, the market is filled with remarkably similar drugs to treat depression and high cholesterol while potentially life-saving medicines for diseases afflicting third-world countries are discontinued because they aren't profitable. In the books most damning passage, Angell tells of the high-priced junkets offered to doctors, ostensibly offered as educational opportunities that seem to constitute little more than bribes. The prognosis for reform is a grim one, Angell indicates, due to the massive cash reserves and lobbying efforts of "Big Pharma." Indeed, that lobby was hard at work trying to discredit her claims immediately upon the book's publication. But for anyone who's paid a pharmacy bill, The Truth About the Drug Companies is a fascinating read. --John Moe

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Paxil
• Ritalin
• prozac
• Wellbutrin
• luvox
• antidepressants
• drugs
• side
• effects
• depression
• cancer

[SuperUdo9990]

1. Drug companies have used fraudulent misinformation to harm people for profit.

2. They have labeled numerous aspects of human behavior as "mental diseases" to sell more drugs.

3. Psychaitric drugs over the long term create more problems than the patient started with.

4. They have targeted children.

5. They have insinuated themselves in the educational system.

6. They have duped Doctors and Teachers into forwarding their destructive misson.

It's a brilliant business strategy!

[camelsonhorizon]

i totally agree with you, Dr. agnell, can i help change this?

[prokopton]

@dannyboidj1 For profit. Money. Corporations have a fiduciary to maximize profit for their shareholders.

[dannyboidj1]

@SuperUdo9990 how do they harm people for profit? can you please explain that.

[Laceed2010]

@bdesousa elaborate please. i seem to have a little bit of confusion to your statement " as well as placebo controlled studies........."

as far as im concerned this is the truth. most drug testing is done compared to a placebo drug not existing drugs. the drug market is not out there to improve there already existing drugs, but to make new ones

they do not care about our health only the money in there pocket

[bdesousa]

also - she is dead wrong about the data she reports for R&D and marketing. For example - a very large portion of marketing budgets are used to conduct clinical trials where, for example, one compares their medication to gold standard... This is done this way because the sample size required to compare against gold standard is much larger than against placebo - it would be unethical to do such large studies with medications that have not yet been approved by the FDA. Kind of a catch-22...

[bdesousa]

I'm certainly no apologist for the drug industry, but this woman is a hack who clearly does not understand the clinical development process... jeez, where to start with her: she is dead wrong about "me too" drugs as well as placebo controlled studies vs active control studies compaing to a "gold standard". Can elaborate for anyone interested...

[Sundrumify]

Thanks for sharing and the intro. Most informative.

Best from Munich,

Lisa

[camelsonhorizon]

don't ever get a prescription. eat organic and exercise no matter what, thats what i do. not to tell people best way to live, this is my example. anyone agree?