Big Pharma Is To Blame?

In the last two decades, opioid addiction started affecting more and more Americans. But who is at fault for this epidemic? The pharmaceutical companies. They make and distribute their drugs to doctors and pharmacies and are making billions off the American worker’s dollar. All while, lying to doctors about these miracle drugs effectiveness and advocating against protective measures for the drugs.

The rise in drug prices is causing the public to ask why this is so and why there isn’t anything being done, or what the reason could be for sky high prices. Some of the reasons include pharmaceutical companies setting their drug prices

The prices of prescription drugs in the United States are by far the highest in the world. [1] On average, Europeans pay 40% less than Americans for the same medications. [2] Consumers have been resorting to several ways, sometimes putting themselves in harm’s way, to alleviate the burden of high prescription drug costs. Some buy their medications online or cross the borders to neighboring countries so they would be able to afford buying their needed medications. Others have resorted to the illegal act of selling their unused medications in online forums just to recover part of their expenses. Many factors contribute to the increased drug prices in the United States including research and

"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system are not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in

Sweeping the nation on a mass caliber is the opioid crisis. Stories have been depicted by every news channel across the nation on the crisis that has destroyed countless individuals lives. According Alanna Semuels's article, "Are Pharmaceutical Companies to Blame for the Opioid Epidemic?", she reports the fault of the calamity. Semuels points out that the perpetrator of this utterly horrendous plague is the doctors who have over-prescribed medication, as well as the pharmaceutical industry. This crisis has been slowly evolving over the past decades but is only now making its way into the mainstream media headlines. The pharmaceutical industry has been steadily infiltrated its' way into all arrangements of healthcare in the sole pursuit of gaining

Shortages of prescription drugs in the United States are a serious threat to our nation’s health and safety. At first blush, this problem appears fairly simple and straight forward to solve. In reality, there is a complex web of causation with a number of root causes contributing to drug shortages. The aim of this paper is to answer the question: How do we mitigate prescription drug shortages? This discussion is written from the standpoint of advising the current presidential administration how to address this crisis. This essay begins with a discussion regarding the background of the issue. Next, the landscape, including stakeholders in this matter is identified. Following, political, social, economic, and practical factors surrounding

In the article, “Don’t blame addicts for America’s opioid crisis. Here are the real culprits” by Chris McGreal, America’s widespread opioid problem is discussed. Primarily, McGreal points the finger at multiple sources such as the FDA, pharmaceutical companies, and the government for aggravating the opioid problem. According to the author, “America’s opioid crisis was caused by rapacious pharma companies, politicians who colluded with them and regulators who approved one opioid pill after another” (McGreal). However, McGreal believes that there are multiple causes for the deadly opioid epidemic that exists today. Next, McGreal states that money is one of the main reasons for the epidemic of opioids. The author asserts that patients are given

We in America tend to take medications for almost any problem we have, from headaches to gastrointestinal pain, to more serious chronic disorders such as depression and attention deficit disorder. While many of the uses of such medications may be necessary and legitimate, many are not, and due to this fact, many people become dependent on medications, mentally, and or physically. This problem is not simply the fault of the individual; in fact, the blame can also be placed upon the medical community, and the pharmaceutical companies who produce the drugs. How often can one turn on the television to see advertisements for Claritin, Aspirin, Pepto-Bismol, or even Zoloft or Ritalin? The pharmaceutical industry is motivated by monetary

This is the primary reason that our government is having such a difficult time trying to formulate strategies to combat the problem. The Big Pharma industry has a lot of power people and entities in their back pocket. The amount of influence they have in modern American politics is honestly unfathomable. There are hundreds of millions of dollars spent annually on the lobbying of politicians to do these companies’ bidding for them. Until we find a way to negate some of these lobbying practices, legislative progress on the opioid front will continue to move very

The Opioid epidemic is not new, but one thing is different now, and that is how the mainstream media is calling the large drug company’s out on how they have knowingly created this epidemic. These big drug companies with the help of the FDA, have created pill mills that could distribute over 9 million OxyContin pills in a 6-month period. And did so while it, and the FDA, knew it was causing people to become addicted to these drugs.

The rise in costs of prescription medicines affects all sectors of the health care industry, including private insurers, public programs, and patients. Spending on prescription drugs continues to be an important health care concern, particularly in light of rising pharmaceutical costs, the aging population, and increased use of costly specialty drugs. In recent history, increases in prescription drug costs have outpaced other categories of health care spending, rising rapidly throughout the latter half of the 1990s and early 2000s. (Kaiseredu.org, 2012).

A lot of people, particularly the patients who need them, are beginning to wonder why American drug prices are so high. It makes sense why the pharmaceutical companies are selling at the prices they do: they are a business; and they want to, above all else, make a profit. But the real question is: what are all of the

“Historically, generic drugs have long been considered a vital weapon in the fight to contain soaring health care costs. But in the past years, the price of many generics is disconcertingly moving in the wrong direction, drawing the attention of Congress and pricing the wallets of consumers as well as pharmacies and insurers” (Hirst). Generic drugs were introduced to help combat the rising cost of health care and allow market competition for the brand-name drug. However lately, the price has been increased. Due to big corporations wanting more profit, raw material shortages, and insurance not covering the medical bills the prices have

As shown in the graph above, the US spends more than twice what other countries spend on medication. Brand name drugs make up 72% of spending in the US, 10% being prescriptions, and since 2008 prices have risen by 164%. In 2014, Medicare and Medicaid spent $140 billion on medicines, a three times increase for overall health care spending. Administrator of the federal Medicare and Medicaid programmes Andy Slavitt stated: “It is the highest rate of drug spending growth since 2011.” Other nations, such as Europe, have limits as to how much drug companies are allowed to charge in order to prevent them from taking advantage of the sick. However, in the U.S., drug makers have no limitations.

The continuous rising cost of drugs in this country is inevitable. Americans every year are paying more for their pharmaceuticals. Americans are not getting any younger, and the rising cost of medication is becoming more expensive for people to pay. Pharmaceuticals are experiencing a rising cost due to both an ageing population and more so the demand to produce a drug superior to the many products already commanding the market. The cost to produce and manufacture a drug is high, which incurs a higher cost on the consumer once reaching the market. In order to understand why pharmaceuticals are so expensive, one must understand the extensive processes of drug manufacturing, the differences between brand and generic medication, and lastly the economic impact branded and generic medications have on the drug market.