I thought The Truth About Drug Companies was very well written and informative. At first, I was shocked by the deception and exploitation, by which these pharmaceutical companies function. As I continued reading, I wondered, are they really at fault? I don't want to sound like a cynic but what is so different about the way drug companies function? What sets them apart from other large industries? Yes, they do hold in their hands numerous cures and treatments, and many people depend on them to live. However, it just seems that when something has the potential to become profitable in this country, a frantic rat race will naturally emerge.
Marcia Angell does a good job at addressing my question in the reading by stating: "If prescription drugs were like ordinary consumer goods, all this might not matter very much. But drugs are different. People depend on them for their health and even their lives". I found this quote to be quite interesting, it is true that American consumers spend over $200 billion annually on prescription drugs. But what about the food industry? According to The Food Industry Plunkett Research, Americans spend over $1 trillion a year on food and just like drugs, we need food to survive. This may be a foolish comparison, however, similar to drug companies, the food industry is not known for their honest policies and will also commit unethical acts to make a profit.
Another large industry that is expected to function in an altruistic fashion is the healthcare industry. Just to state some shocking facts, according to the Business Insider, medical bills are the responsible for over 60% of all personal bankruptcies in the United States each year. They go on to say that hospitals overcharge Americans by about $10 billion every single year. So what is it that makes these companies with such great social and moral responsibilities behave in such a perverse manner? Is it the money? Is it the norm? Is it a product of our capitalistic society or are they to blame?
Prescription drug companies have the power over the populace to charge whatever price they want for their drugs since their product is crucial for the public's health. You can compare them to any other industry that meets the supply and demand of our society. The drug companies play into the capitalistic economy that we have and even though medicine is often seen as something outside competitive pricing it is often carried out as such. Evidence to these claims can be seen when you compare the prices of drugs here to the prices of the same drugs in other countries. It is not rare to see a prescription drug here being priced a lot higher here than other places throughout the world. The drug companies in America claim that the reason for this inflation is because part of the money that is charged by the companies goes to the research of developing other drugs. However, it is hard to tell if the extra money charged consistently for every prescription drug is worth the price it took for the research to develop the drug.
ReplyDeleteI think that you've made some very interesting points, Sammy, and I don't think you're totally off with your comparison to the food industry. Many food producers are looking to simply produce the greatest quantity of food at the lowest possible cost, a strategy that can ultimately be harmful for the overall health of the general public. Furthermore, this strategy also causes the most unhealthy food to typically be the cheapest or most readily available. Another thing to consider is that while lowering the cost of prescription drugs might make them more accessible, this may also lend to a greater degree of abuse of prescription medication.
ReplyDelete"The Truth About the Drug Companies" proved that sometimes the truth is a bitter pill to swallow. This was the perfect followup to our discussion on medicalization because it brings full circle the skewed relationship between drug companies and its consumers. As long as consumers demand drugs for their legitimate and/or fabricated diseases, drug companies have no reason to drastically alter their policies because people are going to scrape up up the money to afford their medication. Unless people learn to change their behavior, there is not much to be done in the way of downplaying medicalization because people who are psychology dependent on their medication are not going to accept that they will be just as healthy without them. The most disheartening thing I read was that "The prices drug companies charge have little relationship to the costs of making the drugs and could be cut dramatically without coming anywhere close to threatening research and development." From a naive perspective, which is currently my perspective, medication is meant to tweak a person's health in order to give them the best quality of life. Unfortunately, the truth is drug companies are more concerned with getting people hooked on their medication than perfecting their product. Everything is about pushing the newest drug on the market, when in fact the newest may not be that much different from the older, but you can bet it is more expensive. No one is going to question it because we accept that newer equals better so you pay for what you think you are getting. Prescriptions for medication should be distributed to those people who's lives would be dramatically affected unless they took some sort of drug. This could be something physical like arthritis or something mental like severe depression to the point where someone cannot get out of bed. However, everyone else that just feels better with a daily pick-me-up is hiking up the prices for those who really depend on medication, especially the elderly. There has been a lot of debate in our country over healthcare, and unfortunately, the drug companies are not reliable for doing what is just because they are just looking for their next dollar.
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