betterbodyjournal.com — As of 2005, $758 million was spent on lobbying Washington since 1998 by big Pharma. More than any other industry. There are 2 pharmaceutical lobbyists for every one member of Congress. Twice as much money is spent on Marketing than on R&D by the biggest pharmaceutical companies.
May 17, 2008 View in Crawl 4
lacyMay 19, 2008
Thank you. Whenever people start railing about drug costs, this is my argument. You figure for every drug that actually makes it to market, there are 100+ that turned up to be crap at some stage of development. The money that they're pouring into all this drug development has to come from somewhere, and that's drug sales. Factor in that any drug they make is only going to be highly profitable until the patent expires, when generics can be produced for pennies. Yes, there's a lot of marketing that goes into it, but that's largely (I think) due to increased competition. When there are 15 different new athsma treatments available, you're going to see a lot of ads for them. It'd be nice if they could offer drugs for dirt cheap, but at the end of the day they're a *business*. Science is freaking expensive, and they have to make money, otherwise we wouldn't have the new advances in treatments.
Closed AccountMay 19, 2008
What people don't really understand is the reason for lobbying. The Pharma companies are looking for protection because they are having their pants sued off every time they make a new medicine.For example (not the best example because Merck was aware of some adverse events with the drug before withdrawal from the market), Merck spent millions on researching VIOXX. Then they spent untold millions more on animal, small-scale, and large scale human testing. After getting approved by the FDA, they sold the drug. When it became evident (it was not absolute evidence) that there was an increased death rate of people using VIOXX, Merck withdrew the drug from the market. Now they are being sued for billions by lawyers that are "for the people." Anybody that had a heart attack after taking the drug (it only increased risk vs. Aleve, a drug that has some protective effects), even though in the VAST majority it was completely unrelated, can sue for millions.Situations like these take the incentive away from drug development. They spend million lobbying Congress for protection from lawsuits and ill-conceived legislation that prevents them from what they should be doing...developing drugs.
Closed AccountMay 20, 2008
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shmekelMay 20, 2008
We've truly got the best government that money can buy.This is exactly why the Constitution warns against (and explicitly prohibits) overreaching powers being usurped by the federal government... because invariably such consolidation of power (as we now have in Washington D.C.) results in the use of that power for monetary gain via influence peddling. America has sunk a long way and the trend continues downhill at a disturbing rate...This is what you get (what we all get) when the Constitution is ignored. The dysfunctional lobbyist system that now exists in Washington is a national disgrace where the best interests of the people is peripheral to the primary goals of attaining wealth and power both for companies/industries and for our elected officials. While every lobbyist should indeed be banished from the seat of federal government, the lobbying system wouldn't have the ability to so badly influence the functioning of federal government if the Constitution wasn't ignored. The truth is that 90% of the things that our federal government does are unconstitutional. And most all of that 90% that shouldn't be allowed (and isn't allowed if you trust the Constitution as the supreme law of the land) goes toward the benefit of industries and companies that by their very nature use government authority to actually *harm* the people. Just a few examples are the suppression of alternative energies by the oil industry (and acquiscence of the auto-makers), attempted suppression and burying of information related to the efficacy of over-the-counter supplements by the pharmaceutical industry and medical-industrial complex (note that the medical-industrial complex has also suppressed certain cures for disease to prevent their cash cow from disappearing), and the heinous interventionist foreign policy employed by an almost-bankrupt USA at the behest of the military-industrial complex.The FDA does the bidding largely of the medical-industrial complex and not the citizens. The DOD does the bidding largely of the military-industrial complex and not the citizens. The DOE does the bidding largely (or almost solely) of the energy-industrial complex and not the citizens. Need I say more about the Federal Reserve Bank, the economy, the banking industry, and the citizens? Our government is a behemoth that is owned and operated by the special interests, to the absolute neglect of what really is best for the citizens and the country as a whole.Concentrate unconstitutional power in Washington and this is what you get. And the founding fathers knew it... Somehow the citizens just don't get it, though. And I suspect they won't, either, in critical numbers until they can no longer afford to meet their own daily need of shelter, food, etc... In the meantime the federally facilitated bleeding of the American citizen continues unabated...
leesoongMay 25, 2008
It would be great if the 'Drug War' was a full scale total war - Satellite photography can locate poppy fields, pot fields, etc -Napalm all drug farms into brownfields,arrest the farmers and treat the drug problem in the only way that will work:'Nip it in the Bud'.