One Nation, Under Pills They can have our meds when they pry them out of our cold, dead hands. By Greg Critser
Entire article at http://www.latimes.com/la-op-critser15dec15,0,2598045.story Permission received to post these statistics from the article: Percentage of Americans who use at least one prescription drug daily: 46% Percentage of women who say they would "risk substantial side effects" for a pill that reverses effects of aging on skin: 22%. Percentage of men who say they would do the same for an effective anti-baldness pill: 45% Percentage of men who would "give the tip of my pinkie" for the baldness cure: 19% Average number of prescriptions per U.S. resident, annually, 2001: 11 Total number of prescriptions in U.S., 2001: 3.1 billion. Cost of the above: $132 billion. Projected cost of prescriptions in U.S., 2014: $414 billion. Profit rate for American pharmaceutical firms, 1998: 18.5%. Median rate for all Fortune 500 companies: 4.5% Percentage of incoming undergraduates seeking help in college health clinics who already use one or more prescription psychotropic drugs: 40% Percentage increase in prescription of central nervous system drugs to children between 1985 and 1999: 327% Percentage of consumers using anti-allergy medications Claritin, Allegra and Zyrtec who may not actually have allergies: 65% Number of signs advertising the drug Claritin with the single word, "Anytime," in Newark International Airport lobbies: 75. Amount spent by Merck to advertise anti-arthritis drug Vioxx, 2001: $161 million. Amount spent by Knoll Pharmeceutical to advertise anti-obesity drug Meridia: $65 million. Amount spent by GlaxoSmithKline to promote antidepressant Paxil: $91.8 million. Amount spent by Pfizer to promote Viagra in 2000: $89.5 million. Amount spent by Campbell's to promote soup: $58 million. Amount spent by Nike to promote new line of running shoes: $78 million. Total amount spent to advertise prescription drugs directly to consumers, 2001: $2.7 billion. Number of Americans, annually, who request and receive a prescription for a specific drug after seeing commercial for it: 8.5 million. Number of Paxil prescriptions, 2001: 26 million. Amount spent, 2001-02, to promote Paxil as a new anti-shyness drug: $60 million. Estimated prescriptions of Paxil, 2002: 37 million. Amount spent on lobbying by pharmaceutical firms, 1996-2002: $500 million. Number of lobbyists for pharmaceutical industry: 600. Number of former members of Congress now serving as lobbyists for pharmaceutical industry: 24. Amount of direct contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, 2002 campaigns: $20 million. Percentage of that given to Republicans: 75% Amount given to chair, House Ways and Means Subcommittee: $200,000. To chair, Senate Finance Committee: $114,100. Number of new drugs approved by FDA, 1989-2000: 1,035. Number of the above that the FDA says present "no significant clinical improvement" over older drugs: 558. Number of times the drug giant GlaxoSmithKline was cited by FDA for "deceptive and misleading" advertising, 1997-2001: 14. Number of times it was fined for same: 0. Total number of notices of "advertising violations" issued by FDA to drug makers for print and TV advertisements that were misleading, 1997-2001: 88. Amount of fines levied for such violations: $0. Percentage of drug industry's clinical trials done by universities in the early 1990s: 75% Percentage of drug industry's clinical trials done by universities, 2000: 34% Percentage done by private research firms, 2000: 66% Amount required to develop new drug, according to pharmaceutical industry: $500 million to $800 million. Amount required to develop a new drug, according to independent economists: $110 million to $240 million. Amount invested annually in new drug development, 2001: $30 billion. Amount saved annually by using medication instead of hospitals to treat mentally ill: $25 billion. Annual cost of prescription drug errors: $100 billion. -- The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. Instructions for unsubscribing may be found at: http://silverlist.org To post, address your message to: [email protected] Silver-list archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
