Big drug companies have been accused of putting profits above patients, spinning false PR campaigns and more. Here are some of the most shocking facts about the pharmaceutical industry.

The price of drugs is increasing faster than anything else a patient pays for: The prices of the most heavily prescribed drugs are routinely jacked up, sometimes several times a year. Some medications have a mark-up of 1,000 percent over the cost of their ingredients.

Your doctor may have an ulterior motive behind your prescription: Drug reps often give gifts to convince doctors to prescribe the medications that they represent. These drug reps usually have no medical or science education.

Pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than research: Almost twice as much!

Guilty of Medicare fraud: Pharmaceutical companies are being tried in federal courts as a result of their exploitation of Medicare. AstraZeneca had to pay more than $340 million in penalties for coaching doctors to cheat Medicare.

The combined wealth of the top 5 pharmaceutical companies outweigh GNP of sub-Saharan Africa: In fact, the combined worth of the world’s top five drug companies is twice the combined GNP of that entire region.

Americans pay more for prescription meds than anyone else in the world: $200 billion in 2002 alone.

"New" Drugs aren‘t really new: Two-thirds of “new” prescription drugs are identical to existing drugs or modified versions of them.

Drug companies are taking advantage of underdeveloped countries to perform clinical trials: In developing countries, government oversight is more lax.

For more shocking facts, click the link below.

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

According to Corporate Watch, Fortune magazine has declared the world’s biggest drug company, Pfizer the “fifth-best wealth-creator” in America.  

The question is: who benefits from this “creation of wealth”? It’s certainly not the Americans who pay a thousand percent markup for the drugs Pfizer pumps out. 

Americans pay far more for their drugs than any other nation. Take this, for example: according to PricewaterhouseCoopers fascinating report, Pharma 2020: The Vision, India spends $420 per diabetic patient per year. The U.S., in comparison, spends an average of $10,844 per year per patient.Their report also states:

“The current pharmaceutical industry business model is both economically unsustainable and operationally incapable of acting quickly enough to produce the types of innovative treatments demanded by global markets. In order to make the most of these future growth opportunities, the industry must fundamentally change the way it operates.

Some of the major changes PwC anticipates for the industry are:

• Health care will shift in focus from treatment to prevention.
• Pharmaceutical companies will provide total health care packages.
• The current linear phase research & development process will give way to in-life testing and live licensing, in collaboration with regulators and health care providers.
• The traditional blockbuster sales model will disappear.
• The supply chain function will become revenue generating as it becomes integral to the health care package and enables access to new channels.
• More sophisticated direct-to-consumer distribution channels will diminish the role of wholesalers.

Now, some of this has an encouraging ring to it, such as shifting the focus from treatment to prevention. Other “predictions” are far more menacing, including the development of more sophisticated direct-to-consumer distribution channels for drugs.  

People are Waking Up to the Truth About Health

Fortunately, more people are waking up to the illusion and deception of the drug industry as a whole, and starting to clearly see the truth. Last year’s PricewaterhouseCoopers' report cited a declining trust in the reputation of the mega-pharmaceuticals.

The main reason is because the public is absolutely right in their estimation that drug companies manipulate or suppress negative clinical trials, promote their toxic products for unapproved uses, and focus on developing drugs that are no better than older ones.

This is yet another indication that my vision to reconfigure and reform the deadly state of conventional health care in America is getting closer to becoming a reality. So keep up the good work folks. But please be aware, the battle has merely begun… Each of the 25 facts listed in the article above constitutes a problem within the system that needs to be changed or abolished.

Physicians must also, en masse, come to the realization that what they are doing is going nowhere. This may be one of the most difficult areas to change, as the pharmaceutical industry has devised a highly effective system of indoctrination and very specific psychological techniques to bamboozle physicians. Doctors usually believe they are immune to persuasion tactics, and drug reps know just how important it is to maintain that illusion – which is why it works so well. 

Consider for a moment the in-depth report published in both The New England Journal of Medicine and PLoS Medicine, which admitted that pharmaceutical sales reps are trained in tactics that are on par with some of the most potent brainwashing techniques used throughout the world!

The idea that reps provide some kind of valuable, informative service to physicians is total fiction, created and perpetuated by the drug industry, to keep this deadly, but profitable, scheme going.

Poison For Profit

Another shocking fact that few consider is that virtually every major pharmaceutical company has a corresponding branch that creates the toxins and poisons that contribute to the chronic diseases their drugs and medical devices treat.

So these huge transnational companies profit not only from the sale of products such as pesticides, herbicides and GM crops, but also from the symptoms and chronic illnesses that they can trigger.

The vast majority of chemicals found in pesticides and other products undergo little or no testing for chronic, low level exposures and for chronic health effects, effectively creating a circle of destruction and double profits.

Below is a list of such chem/pharm companies:

Make no mistake about it. The drug companies are incredibly powerful, and overcoming their influence over your life will take a mammoth effort.

But there are concrete steps you can take to combat the drug companies' self-interest, save yourself loads of money, and improve your health so you can avoid unnecessary drugs in the first place.

Ten Steps to Reduce Your Pharmaceutical Expenses Now

Take charge of your own health now instead of handing it over to the drug companies.

How do you do that?

You can start by using the Internet to locate non-drug alternatives to your health challenges. Many start with my site as it has more than 150,000 pages to help you understand more about how you can improve your health without drugs or surgery, through simple lifestyle modifications.

These are the basic tenets of optimal health that have always remained permanent truths, regardless of what marvels modern science comes up with next:

1. Eat a healthy diet that’s right for your nutritional type (paying very careful attention to keeping your insulin levels down)
2. Drink plenty of clean water
3. Manage your stress
4. Exercise
5. Get plenty of appropriate sun exposure
6. Limit toxin exposure
7. Consume healthy fat
8. Eat plenty of raw food
9. Optimize insulin and leptin levels
10. Get plenty of sleep

If you want to further understand how corporations and government manipulate science and the media by preying upon the public trust -- and how to protect yourself -- I highly recommend the book "Trust Us, We're Experts."

One of the primary purposes of Mercola.com is to provide you with the insight to protect and defend yourself from these major corporate interests (as well as the government they've purchased). I’ve committed myself to providing you with practical and straightforward advice and suggestions on how to optimize your body to prevent disease, reach your optimal weight, and live longer.

Related Articles:

  Drug Company Accountability

 Psychological Warfare Techniques -- Used on Your Doctor

 Sound the Alarm -- Stop the Dangerous, Drug-Promoting "Mothers Act"

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