“The Truth About the Drug Companies” By Marcia Angell
New York Review of Books – Volume 51, July 15, 2004
1. Every day Americans are subjected to a barrage of advertising by the pharmaceutical industry. Mixed in with the pitches for a particular drug–usually featuring beautiful people enjoying themselves in the great outdoors–is a more general message. Boiled down to its essentials, it is this:
“Yes, prescription drugs are expensive, but that shows how valuable they are.
Besides, our research and development costs are enormous, and we need to cover them somehow. As ‘research-based’ companies, we turn out a steady stream of innovative medicines that lengthen life, enhance its quality, and avert more expensive medical care. You are the beneficiaries of this ongoing achievement of the American free enterprise system, so be grateful, quit whining, and pay up.” More prosaically, what the industry is saying is that you get what you pay for.