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What the Drug Companies Dont
Want You to Know

May 8, 2003

Click on the television or open a magazine and before long youll see it, an ad promising to cure whatever ails you. But increasingly those big marketing budgets are pricing out the very people the drugs were developed to help.

The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers, a new book written by Katharine Greider and published by Public Affairs, exposes the underbelly of what is consistently the most profitable industry in America, even during recessions.

"Americans buy, sell and use drugs to the advantage of pharmaceuticals, not their own advantage," Greider said May 7 at the AFL-CIO, which hosted a book launch event.

The profits of the drug companies not only fund the ubiqutious commercials and advertisements, they also contribute to the campaign coffers of politicians, who ensure laws keep their research and price formulas secret, cloaked in "proprietary" shrouds. Laws also protect patents that prevent the manufacture and sale of generic equivalents of many life-saving drugs. These "megabrands" represent the bread and butter of an industry that has bought and paid for the laws that protect the companies and the doctors that prescribe the medications.

"The muscle of the industry is so strong, it drowns out other sources of information," Greider said.

Among the facts Greider brings out in the book:

• American consumers buy half of all pharmaceuticals sold worldwide;
  
• Americans spend $200 billion annually on drugs, half of the federal governments defense budget;
  
• Prescription drug spending is rising three times faster than other health care costs;
  
• For every dollar spent on pharmaceutical drugs, another dollar is spent on treating the effects of drugs.
  

Springfield, Ohio resident Melva McCuddy, 77, said the anti-cancer drug tamoxifen, which costs $400 for a three-month supply in the United States, can be purchased in Canada for $38.99. She detailed the painful toll expensive drugs take on a seniors budget.

"When you have more than eight prescriptions, first the discretionary funds go, then your primary funds take a hit," McCuddy said. "Then you go to your physician with a begging cup, asking for samples. Were microcosms of millions of people."

Dr. Alan Sager director of the Boston University Health Reform program, said the irony of the situation is right now is what the country needs will not pass Congress and what will pass wont work. Describing industry executives as "the most nervous well-dressed people in America," he advocated legislated cuts in manufacturers prices. But until legislators gain the political will for forcing the change, it wont happen.

"Our leaders have to acknowledge they cant accommodate drug companies at every turn," Greider said.

For more on what the IBEW is doing to address the problem, watch the mail for the June issue of the IBEW Journal, which will detail the new IBEW national prescription drug program. For more information on the pharmaceutical industry, visit www.aflcio.org.

Prescription Drug
Pricing Reform... from Congressman Bernie Sanders Web site

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