Many Americans have wondered why prescription drugs have become so expensive while advertising for those drugs seems to grow exponentially. According to former New England Journal of Medicine Editor Marcia Angell the pharmaceutical industry is fraught with corruption and doing a disservice to customers, the federal government, and to the medical establishment itself. She explains how a huge portion of the revenue generated by Big Pharmaceutical goes not into research and development but into aggressive marketing campaigns to sell their product. Meanwhile, most of the R & D work is done by colleges and universities funded by the government and the drug companies are misleading their customers when they claim that it costs them an average of 802 million dollars per drug to develop new medicines. When in fact that figure is obscenely inflated since it factors in marketing as well as expected interest the company would have received had they invested the money in the open market.

There are also problems with the drugs themselves, according to a 60 Minutes investigation, since the majority of new drugs are actually only slightly modified versions of existing products. Consequently, the market is filled with large numbers of near identical drugs to treat depression and high cholesterol while potentially life-saving medicines for diseases afflicting third-world countries are discontinued because they are considered by the manufacturers to be not profitable.

Furthermore, pharmaceutical companies often bribe physicians with all expense paid vacations that are reported to be educational seminars, but act as paid incentive for the doctors to prescribe certain drugs.

It is very clear that the drug companies have strayed from their original mission of discovering and manufacturing useful drugs and instead have become vast marketing machines with unprecedented control over their own fortunes. They have gained nearly limitless influence over medical research, education, and how doctors do their jobs. The end result is unprecedented profits for the drug companies and over priced pharmaceuticals. This is a disaster for the citizens of this country. Particularly the elderly who struggle, and increasingly fail, to afford their prescription drugs.

Currently Americans spend a staggering $200 billion each year on prescription drugs and the pharmaceutical companies try to explain that high drug prices are necessary to fund research and development. However, the truth is that the bulk of their resources are used in the marketing of products of dubious benefit and to push their agenda through Congress and the FDA.

Finally, the Drug companies routinely rig clinical trials to make their products look better than they are and use their legions of lawyers to stretch out government-granted exclusive marketing rights for years. All the while flooding the market with copycat drugs that cost a lot more than the drugs they mimic but are no more effective.

In the book, The Truth About the Drug Companies by Dr. Angell, it is explained that the American pharmaceutical industry can be corrected with a strict program of vital reforms, which includes restoring impartiality to clinical research and severing the ties between drug companies and medical education. However it does not appear that any real change is forthcoming.