The Truth About...How to fix what you can't change

The Truth About Drug Companies by Marcia Angell, discuses the exorbitant costs of pharmaceutical drugs in America and why this phenomenon needs further analysis. She argues that the high costs of prescription medication do not solely cover the research and development or anything vital to the making of helpful drugs, but that these costs solely enhance the profits made by companies.

As anyone could guess, many corporations are corrupt, especially in an unchecked free market system that exists today. Her focus on the fact that new life saving drugs aren’t in circulation but that 77% of new drugs approved by the FDA were “me too” drugs highlights that this is an unscrupulous business run for profit. I think the biggest point she makes were the three factors that keep this “me-too” business alive was the targeting of common lifelong conditions, the availability of paying customers and the elasticity of the market (83-85). Currently, we live in a capitalist society which after Reagan in 1980, became even more pro business with less regulation and this also sustains this system (6).

 However, it is unclear to me how this books’ decision to unpack the inequalities of capitalism as presented in the pharmaceutical world will change the system, if at all. The government can’t be inclined to regulate Big-Pharma, especially if they place money into the lobbying and political campaigns (19). Perhaps what needs to be the takeaway from this book isn’t how terrible the drug companies are (because this is how many businesses work), but what those of us as a collective can improve the system. If the biggest area of profit for drug companies is the “me too” drugs, then maybe we as people who need medicine and people who are trained as doctors need a shift away from the culture that uses pills to cure any disorder, disease or cold. As she says in the book, now even premenstrual disease is considered a disease in which the pills to manage it are watered down Prozac. Although it too late to undo the greed that is rampant in various companies and force regulation on these industries, maybe all of us can refuse to treat heartburn, PMS, and non-life threatening diseases with pills. If we boycott these products and take away from what makes profits grow, then they’d have to spend more time developing real drugs. Doctors also need to give a more holistic approach to their patients. Instead of just giving people medication for high blood pressure, diet and exercise needs to be on a prescription sheet too so that we aren’t dependent on drugs forever.  I can’t foresee any changes to big business unless the consumer asks for it, so it may be up to us at this point to change how we consume drugs and for what purposes we use them.