Big Drugs: A Bitter Pill
Key points
- To pay a high price for a prescription drug is a bitter pill if you're already struggling to make ends meet.
- All the more bitter if you learn that there's been a problem all along with that drug you've been taking, reports Sunday Morning correspondent Martha Teichner.So now we discover that taking the arthritis drug Vioxx can double our risk of having a heart attack.
- It's enough to shake one's confidence in the pharmaceutical industry - if it hasn't been shaken already.
- According to a Harris poll published in June, Americans' regard for drug companies has been plummeting, from 79 percent thinking they were doing a good job in 1997, to 44 percent in 2004.
To pay a high price for a prescription drug is a bitter pill if you're already struggling to make ends meet.
All the more bitter if you learn that there's been a problem all along with that drug you've been taking, reports Sunday Morning correspondent Martha Teichner.So now we discover that taking the arthritis drug Vioxx can double our risk of having a heart attack. What's more, evidence started showing up four years before Merck yanked it's $2.5 billion a year seller from the market.
It's enough to shake one's confidence in the pharmaceutical industry - if it hasn't been shaken already.
According to a Harris poll published in June, Americans' regard for drug companies has been plummeting, from 79 percent thinking they were doing a good job in 1997, to 44 percent in 2004. That's a 35 percent drop, placing them only slightly above oil and tobacco companies in the public's esteem.
Shocking? In a CBS News poll released this weekend, only 15 percent of those interviewed had a positive view of drug makers. And a customer in a Washington, D.C., pharmacy summed up the prevailing attitude with this challenge to the industry:
"Why don't you cut out all the baloney about not being able to do research and development if prices are lowered - you're already spending billions on advertising."
Some $3 billion last year, according to the industry.
A significant chunk of that now being spent attempting image repair.
The ads are not about the issue driving the poll results: Prescription drug prices in the United States are the highest in the world.
Take a look at these figures compiled by AARP for five of the name brand drugs most used by seniors. In just four years, the registered wholesale price increased as much as 35 percent.
Lipitor rose 26.3 percent, Plavix 35.1 percent, Prevacid 22.6 percent, Celebrex 17.7 percent, and Norvasc 19.7 percent.
The drug industry makes the point that it gave away 17 million prescriptions last year, free, to people who can't afford to pay. But that's not even one percent of the 3.5 billion prescriptions filled in this country in 2003.
Alan Holmer, president of PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry trade organization, says prices for drugs may be lower in Canada, but notes that there are no major research-based pharmaceutical companies there. "We need to keep that innovation engine strong in order to make sure that we're able to get new cures and the new treatments for Alzheimer's, for cancer..."
Pfizer CEO Hank McKinnell says the answer to high drug prices is disease prevention, not price controls, a sentiment is reflected in the company's latest ad campaign.
In defense of the pharmaceutical industry, McKinnell points to the list of drugs Pfizer produces.
Written and revised by
Andrey Nailor, M.D.
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