Today, more people around the world are taking medicine than ever before. Did you ever wonder if all that medicine is really needed, or even if it is really effective for everything that it is given for? I don't know how others feel, but I can't believe those advertisements that are appearing for drugs on television. One I saw shows two people happily smiling and going about their business in a beautiful outdoor setting. A voice is telling us the they take Medicine X and this allows them to lead a normal life, even though they have disease Z. Then the voice begins to tell you that this medicine is not for everyone and that there can be side effects and one of the main ones is death. It goes on to say that some people have gotten Lymphoma and Shingles. Think this was the end? Nope there was more, the voice told us that taking this drug could cause dependency and sleepless nights. As if that wasn't enough, we were told that this drug could increase some of the symptoms that we were taking other drugs for and that before taking this drug, we should consult our doctor to make sure we don't get a reaction from mixing this drug with others that we are taking.

Now let me ask you this, why would anyone that heard this commercial run out and tell their doctor that they wanted this drug? This thing sounds more dangerous than a space shuttle flight. One of the things that you have to wonder about is the price of these drugs. The companies will be more than glad to tell you how expensive it is to develop them and that is why they have to charge so much for them. They never mention the fact that they charge far more for them in this country than anywhere else. Could this have something to do with favorable drug laws passed by the Congress to help these people pick our pockets? Another thing that is really annoying is the fact that many of our drugs bear the label, "made in China". Do not get me wrong, I have nothing against China, but with all their food and drug problems, should we have to rely on their inspections of this stuff? Drugs from American companies should be made here. I admit that the record of the FDA has not been something to be proud of in the last eight years or so, but it is still better than the Chinese government's. That is not the only thing that really galls me, it is the fact that the profit on these drugs are so huge and still the U.S. companies send the stuff to be made somewhere else to save a few cents a bottle. Business is one thing, but this is beginning to look more and more like outright greed. I think they reached the bottom of the barrel, when most of the drug companies threatened Canadian drug stores, by telling them that if they sold the American drugs at Canadian prices to U.S. citizens, they would be cut off. Why should there be price differences anyway?

Why are drug prices cheaper in Canada anyway? It is because the Canadian government looks out for it's citizens. There is a Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB). It's function is to use international price benchmarking to regulate Canadian prices. Companies can not charge more than the Board will allow. I used to be against this type of thing, because I felt that the free market should set the price. This was before all the companies banded together and did away with competition. This has happened in so many different areas. Just look at gasoline, medicine, dairy farming and such. These products all cost about the same wherever you buy them and from whatever company. Didn't you ever wonder about this, I know that I did? Taking this a step further, local provinces in Canada have a hand in setting prices for the poor and seniors and others. The policy in this country is, the heck with the people and let all these companies do whatever they want and charge whatever they want and ignore the monopoly laws entirely. It just doesn't seem to matter to anyone that some seniors and others have to choose between food and medicine, or can't even afford medicine, even if they stopped eating.

The New Jersey Ledger ran an article on 22 June, 2008 entitled, "A fear factor accompanies generic drugs made in China". It goes on to state that generic drugs will not be available in bulk for about seven years, but the thought of this has raised many fears, because of China's bad history of selling substandard drugs in it's own country. U.S. Pharmacopeia, is the official standards-setting authority for all prescription and over-the-counter drugs in this country. The chief executive of that company has called China, "...the poster for problems." These are not exactly reassuring words. There is a very scary aspect to all this. Many of the drugs that China will produce will be generic. This means that insurance companies in the U.S. will insist that many of their insured take them, or they will not pay. This in turn will put a lot of pressure on those companies that are making the same thing outside of China, including in the U.S. and that could drive them out of business. So this is a double edged sword. One edge is that we may get inferior drugs and the other edge is that the jobless rate will rise.

Over the past few years, it seems that almost everyone has been prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs. If you are over 40 years old and talk to others, you will hear them talk about it. In 2006 over one and one half billion dollars was spent on one of these drugs. Let me use one drug as an example. It was launched in the U.S. in 2002. It took off as the amount of prescriptions written for it, increased dramatically. It was said to be the most effective cholesterol inhibiting drug on the market. To make a long story short, a study of it was completed this year and it showed that the drug was completely ineffective, except for the component statin that was available by itself in many other drugs. Do you mean to tell me that the developer of this drug had no idea that it really was not only nothing special, but introduced extra drugs into your body that not only did nothing to help, but increased chances of side effects. The total amount of money that was spent in the U.S. on cholesterol lowering drugs in 2006 was 19.5 billion dollars. It was said that the same amount of drugs purchased in Canada would have cost 1.5 billion less.

Did you know that many drugs that are given to humans and animals are the same, except for the strengths of course and the prices? When an expert was asked why medicine for animals is cheaper than the same medicine for humans, here is what he said, "The observed price differences cannot be explained by differences in research costs. Research is a fixed or sunk cost. Manufacturers do not set their prices based on recovery of these costs. Instead, they set their prices as high as possible in order to maximize revenue and profit" Taking this a step further, concerning quality and manufacture, which the drug industries claim is different, the same expert stated, "There do not appear to be major differences in quality between animal and human drugs. The Food and Drug Administration regulations governing drug quality and production, the so-called “good manufacturing practice” (BMP) requirements, are codified in 21 C.F.R. part 211. These requirements, which are designed to ensure drug quality and consistency, apply equally to both human and animal drugs. According to FDA: The methods, facilities, and controls under which animal drugs are manufactured, processed, packaged, or held for sale, must conform to the requirements of the regulations for Current Good Manufacturing Practices in the drug industry generally"

So there you have it. We are being charged more for drugs because we are Americans, we are being given inferior Chinese drugs and we are using drugs that if we were animals would cost us a lot less. How much more bleak can this picture get? Where is our government while all this is going on?