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Sent: Sun, 20 Apr 2008 8:38 pm
Subject: [ctrl] Shocking Facts About the Pharmaceutical Industry
Shocking Facts About the Pharmaceutical Industry
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/04/19/shocking-facts-about-the-pharmaceutical-industry.aspx
Big drug companies have been accused of putting profits above patients,
spinning false PR campaigns and more. Here are some of the most shocking facts
about the pharmaceutical industry.
The price of drugs is increasing faster than anything else a patient pays for:
The prices of the most heavily prescribed drugs are routinely jacked up,
sometimes several times a year. Some medications have a mark-up of 1,000
percent over the cost of their ingredients.
Your doctor may have an ulterior motive behind your prescription: Drug reps
often give gifts to convince doctors to prescribe the medications that they
represent. These drug
reps usually have no medical or science education.
Pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than research: Almost twice as
much!
Guilty of Medicare fraud: Pharmaceutical companies are being tried in federal
courts as a result of their exploitation of Medicare. AstraZeneca had to pay
more than $340 million in penalties for coaching doctors to cheat Medicare.
The combined wealth of the top 5 pharmaceutical companies outweigh GNP of
sub-Saharan Africa: In fact, the combined worth of the world¡¯s top five drug
companies is twice the combined GNP of that entire region.
Americans pay more for prescription meds than anyone else in the world: $200
billion in 2002 alone.
"New" Drugs aren't really new: Two-thirds of ¡°new¡± prescription drugs are
identical to existing drugs or modified versions of them.
Drug companies are taking advantage of underdeveloped countries to perform
clinical trials: In developing countries, government oversight is more lax.
For more shocking facts, click the link below.
Sources:
Nursing Online Education Database March 27, 2008
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
According to Corporate Watch, Fortune magazine has declared the world¡¯s
biggest drug company, Pfizer the ¡°fifth-best wealth-creator¡± in America.
The question is: who benefits from this ¡°creation of wealth¡±? It¡¯s certainly
not the Americans who pay a thousand percent markup for the drugs Pfizer pumps
out.
Americans pay far more for their drugs than any other nation. Take this, for
example: according to PricewaterhouseCoopers fascinating report, Pharma 2020:
The Vision, India spends $420 per diabetic patient per year. The U.S., in
comparison, spends an average of $10,844 per year per patient.Their report also
states:
¡°The current pharmaceutical industry business model is both economically
unsustainable and operationally incapable of acting quickly enough to produce
the types of innovative treatments demanded by global markets. In order to make
the most of these future growth opportunities, the industry must fundamentally
change the way it operates.
Some of the major
changes PwC anticipates for the industry are:
Health care will shift in focus from treatment to prevention.
Pharmaceutical companies will provide total health care packages.
The current linear phase research & development process will give way to
in-life testing and live licensing, in collaboration with regulators and health
care providers.
The traditional blockbuster sales model will disappear.
The supply chain function will become revenue generating as it becomes integral
to the health care package and enables access to new channels.
More sophisticated direct-to-consumer distribution channels will diminish the
role of wholesalers.
Now, some of this has an encouraging ring to it, such as shifting the focus
from treatment to prevention. Other ¡°predictions¡± are far more menacing,
including the development of more sophisticated direct-to-consumer
distribution channels for drugs.
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People are Waking Up to the Truth About Health
Fortunately, more people are waking up to the illusion and deception of the
drug industry as a whole, and starting to clearly see the truth. Last year¡¯s
PricewaterhouseCoopers' report cited a declining trust in the reputation of the
mega-pharmaceuticals.
The main reason is because the public is absolutely right in their estimation
that drug companies manipulate or suppress negative clinical tr
ials, promote their
toxic products for unapproved uses, and focus on developing drugs that are no
better than older ones.
This is yet another indication that my vision to reconfigure and reform the
deadly state of conventional health care in America is getting closer to
becoming a reality. So keep up the good work folks. But please be aware, the
battle has merely begun¡ Each of the 25 facts listed in the article above
constitutes a problem within the system that needs to be changed or abolished.
Physicians must also, en masse, come to the realization that what they are
doing is going nowhere. This may be one of the most difficult areas to change,
as
the pharmaceutical industry has devised a highly effective system of
indoctrination and very specific psychological techniques to bamboozle
physicians. Doctors usually believe they are immune to persuasion tactics, and
drug reps know just how important it is to maintain that illusion ¨C which is
why it works so well.
Consider for a moment the in-depth report published in both The New England
Journal of Medicine and PLoS Medicine, which admitted that pharmaceutical sales
reps are trained in tactics that are on par with some of the most potent
brainwashing techniques used throughout the world!
The idea that reps provide some kind of valuable, informative service to
physicians is total fiction, created and perpetuated by the drug industry, to
keep this deadly, but profitable, scheme going.
Poison For Profit
Another shocking fact that few consider is that virtually every major
pharmaceutical company has a corresponding branch that creates the toxins and
poisons that contribute to the chronic diseases their drugs and medical devices
treat.
So these huge transnational companies profit not only from the sale of products
such as pesticides, herbicides and GM crops, but also from the symptoms and
chronic illnesses that they can trigger.
The vast majority of chemicals found in pesticides and other products
undergo little or no testing for chronic, low level exposures and for chronic
health effects, effectively creating a circle of destruction and double
profits.
Below is a list of such chem/pharm companies:
Chemical Division
Pharmaceutical Division
Aventis (herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, GM food)
Aventis Pharma
Monsanto (herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, GM food)
Pharmacia
BASF (herbicides, fungicides, pesticides)
BASF Pharmaceuticals
Merck Research Company (precursors for pesticides and neurotoxins)
Merck
Dow Chemical (industrial chemicals and pharmaceuticals)
Dow Pharmaceuticals
Make no mistake about it. The drug companies are incredibly powerful, and
overcoming their influence over your life will take a mammoth effort.
But there are concrete steps you can take to combat the drug companies'
self-interest, save yourself loads of money, and improve your health so you can
avoid unnecessary drugs in the first place.
Ten Steps to Reduce Your Pharmaceutical Expenses Now
Take charge of your own health now instead of handing it over to the drug
companies.
How do you do that?
You can start by using the Internet to locate non-drug alternatives to your
health challenges. Many start with my site as it has more than 150,000 pages to
help you understand more about how you can improve your health without drugs or
surgery, through simple lifestyle modifications.
These are the basic tenets of optimal health that have always remained
permanent truths, regardless of what marvels modern science comes up with next:
Eat a healthy diet that¡¯s right for your nutritional type (paying very careful
attention to keeping your insulin levels down)
Drink plenty of clean water
Manage your stress
Exercise
Get plenty of appropriate sun exposure
Limit toxin exposure
Consume healthy fat
Eat plenty of raw food
Optimize insulin and leptin levels
Get plenty of sleep
If you want to further understand how corporations and government manipulate
science and the media by preying upon the public trust -- and how to protect
yourself -- I highly recommend the book "Trust Us, We're Experts."
One of the primary purposes of Mercola.com is to provide you with the insight
to protect and defend yourself from these
major corporate interests (as well as the government they've purchased). I¡¯ve
committed myself to providing you with practical and straightforward advice and
suggestions on how to optimize your body to prevent disease, reach your optimal
weight, and live longer.
Related Articles:
Drug Company Accountability
Psychological Warfare Techniques -- Used on Your Doctor
Sound the Alarm -- Stop the Dangerous, Drug-Promoting "Mothers Act"
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