Essay on The Rise in the Price of Prescription Drugs

According to, http://www.toxicology.org/gp/fda.asp, the Society of Toxicology website, in 1937 the Massengill pharmaceutical company dispersed Elixir Sulfanilamide. This drug was prescribed generally to anyone who had symptoms of strep throat. Elixir Sulfanilamide contains diethylene glycol, which is a chemical equivalent of antifreeze. There were 107 documented deaths, involving many children, because of the lack in regulations. The Pure Food and Drug Act was deemed to insufficient to protect the public. This tragedy was the critical motivation for the creation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

The purpose of the Pure Food and Drug Act was to protect the public against contamination of food and from products identified as healthful without scientific support. The muckrakers had successfully heightened public awareness of safety issues develop from careless food preparation procedures and the increasing number of drug addiction from patent medicines, both accidental and conscious. President Theodore Roosevelt began the process by ensuring the passage of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906, which was followed by the Pure Food and Drug Act, passed in 1906 to become effective at the start of 1907. (Us

The first Pure Food and Drug Act was put into action by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. The act was passed to prevent the manufacture, sale, or transportation of misbranded or harmful food, drugs, medicines, and liquors. Due to this act the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) came to be. The FDA is now responsible for the testing of all foods and drugs for human consumption and the label warnings on them as well.

The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938: Sulfonamide tested for flavor and fragrance but not safety, children died and 350 more were poisoned. This act made it so the sale of unsafe drugs could be stopped, that toxic drugs could be seized, and the burden of proof was given to the manufactures to show data of safety experiments.

spends more on drugs? It’s true that in the U.S., as in many wealthy OECD countries, pharmaceutical spending has been declining in real terms. For some countries, this trend is explained by cuts in government spending in the wake of the Great Recession. In the U.S., much of this decline is explained by the fact that patents on a number of top drugs have expired, meaning they can be replaced by cheaper generics. This effect is expected to last another two or three years; after that, future trends in spending are harder to predict.

The Harrison Narcotics Act, go in 1914, was the United States ' first government tranquilize arrangement. The demonstration confined the fabricate and offer of pot, cocaine, heroin, and morphine. The demonstration was forcefully implemented. Doctors, who were recommending medications to addicts on "upkeep" projects were brutally rebuffed. In the vicinity of 1915 and 1938, more than 5,000 doctors were indicted and fined or imprisoned. In 1919, The Supreme Court ruled against the support of addicts as a honest to goodness type of treatment in the United States. America 's first government tranquilize arrangement focused on doctors and drug specialists.

On June 30, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act. He began to enforce this act by also passing the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. The person responsible for introducing the act is Sen. Weldon Heyburn. The act is sure to benefit the health of Americans in the present and future.

This put pressure on congress and finally the Pure Food and Drug Act law was

A terrible incident happened in Tennessee in 1937 when a drug called Elixir Sulfanilamide was mislabeled and contained toxic quantities of antifreeze that killed over 100 people (FDA's Origin & Functions - FDA History). Before this event, Congress debated substituting the 1906 Act and this instance in Tennessee drove Congress to approve the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938 that provided an updated set of standards. Unlike before when the government had to disprove a drug was effective, the new act stated that drugs had to be proven effective before being sold. It not only replaced the Pure Food and Durg Act, but the Sherley Amendment as well (Centennial Edition of FDA Consumer).

The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was passed by Congress – along with the Meat Inspection Act – on June 30, 1906, then took effect on January 7, 1907 (Lerner 670). This act prevented manufacturers from selling mislabeled products, contaminated food with unsafe ingredients, and fixes dirty conditions in the food industry that was brought to the attention by journalists and authors (Lerner 670; “Pure Food” 1081). This regulation strongly enforces how food and drug products “were packaged, labeled, sold…in the United States” (“Pure Food”

The first law that was passed was the Pure food and drug act of 1906. This law was passed to protect the public from adulterated food products does meet federal or state standards. The pure food and drug act was amended 3 times, once in 1912, again in 1913 and on last time in 1923. The muckrakers finally successfully made it finally with public awareness with food safety and drug addiction. In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt began the journey for the Mean Inspection Act which was shortly followed by the Food and Drug

Companies were selling drugs that were guaranteed to do things for people, with no proof to back it up. The Pure Food and Drug Act required that all foods and drugs sold across the United States carry accurate labels indicating the presence and dosages their ingredients. It also required federal inspection of meats.

Prescription painkiller addiction and who is at fault for the abuse has become one of the new “hot topics”. There is a huge contradictory over who is at fault, the doctor prescribing the medication or the patient abusing it? Prescription drug abuse has become a worldwide problem. In order to get these medications, the users must have a prescription, which means a doctor must order them the drug. These prescription abusers are seeking out and demanding prescription painkillers in high doses in order to fulfill their craving of the drug. The most commonly abused prescriptions are opiates, depressants, and stimulants. Opiates are just basic painkillers. Opiates include Fentanyl, Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, Percocet, Morphine, etc. Depressants apply to your central nervous system; they are used to cure depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders. Pentobarbital sodium, Valium, and Xanax are typically the most common drugs used in depressants. Stimulants help to treat ADHD and narcolepsy. Ritalin, Adderall, and Dexedrine all occur in stimulating drug prescriptions. These medications have begun to substitute for the illicit street drugs in some cases. This problem has caused pharmaceutical drug overdoses to now be one of the leading causes of death in the nation.

The Pure Food and Drug Act was first implemented in 1905 by President Theodore Roosevelt but it was not officially a law until 1906 and its main purpose was to make sure all food and drug labels were labeled accurately (Hart & Ksir, 2013, p. 53). This act was created in order to fix the American food and drug industry because “At the turn of the 20th century, America’s food supply was enshrouded in unsafe and disgusting practices. Diseases were rampant as American slaughter and packing houses were not regulated nor checked for sanitation purpose” (“Pure Food and Drug Act” 2015).

Once the medication is available to the general population, then there is the hypocrisy that comes with dealing with pharmaceutical companies. Many believe that pharmaceutical companies are in the business of disease management not healing and curing people. Ethically and morally withholding or offering the price of medication at such a high price it is not feasible to general working class individuals in need of the medication. Martin Shkreli, the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (CITED), recently raised the price of Thiola from $1.50 to $30 a pill. Causing many to argue the ethical or moral aptitude of those working at “Big Pharma” and where there interest truly lies? With little to no regulation of profit and cost management those who have the ability to increase medication price, how do we really know what cures are available but beyond our financial