Pharmaceutical Statistics
The below opinion column in the 15 December 2002 _LA Times_
has several statistics involving use of psychiatric drugs in USA.
Feel free to forward:
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LA Times -- OPINION
December 15, 2002
One Nation, Under Pills
They can have our meds when they pry them out of our cold, dead hands.
By Greg Critser
Consider the following bits of recent news.
Drug manufacturer Eli Lilly will be the big beneficiary of a strange addition
to the homeland security bill passed by Congress last month. The clause
protects Lilly from lawsuits filed by parents of autistic kids who blame the
drug company for manufacturing an ingredient in vaccinations that they believe
caused the condition in their children.
More drug news: A Westside doctor lost his license this month after he was
accused of writing medically unnecessary narcotics prescriptions for Winona
Ryder, Courtney Love and others.
And still more: A report this month from the General Accounting Office details
how drug company advertising, often quite misleading, has gotten us to buy
more prescription drugs.
Question: How are these things related? Answer: They all speak to our
increasingly intimate relationship to the pharmaceutical industry. We do like
our drugs -- and our drug companies. Check out the numbers:
Percentage of Americans who use at least one prescription drug daily: 46.
Percentage of women who say they would "risk substantial side effects" for a
pill that reverses effects of aging on skin: 22.
Percentage of men who say they would do the same for an effective
anti-baldness pill: 45.
Percentage of men who would "give the tip of my pinkie" for the baldness cure:
19.
Average number of prescriptions per U.S. resident, annually, 2001: 11.
Total number of prescriptions in U.S., 2001: 3.1 billion.
Cost of the above: $132 billion.
Projected cost of prescriptions in U.S., 2014: $414 billion.
Profit rate for American pharmaceutical firms, 1998: 18.5%.
Median rate for all Fortune 500 companies: 4.5%
Percentage of incoming undergraduates seeking help in college health clinics
who already use one or more prescription psychotropic drugs: 40.
Percentage increase in prescription of central nervous system drugs to
children between 1985 and 1999: 327.
Percentage of consumers using anti-allergy medications Claritin, Allegra and
Zyrtec who may not actually have allergies: 65.
Number of signs advertising the drug Claritin with the single word, "Anytime,"
in Newark International Airport lobbies: 75.
Amount spent by Merck to advertise anti-arthritis drug Vioxx, 2001: $161
million.
Amount spent by Knoll Pharmeceutical to advertise anti-obesity drug Meridia:
$65 million.
Amount spent by GlaxoSmithKline to promote antidepressant Paxil: $91.8
million.
Amount spent by Pfizer to promote Viagra in 2000: $89.5 million.
Amount spent by Campbell's to promote soup: $58 million.
Amount spent by Nike to promote new line of running shoes: $78 million.
Total amount spent to advertise prescription drugs directly to consumers,
2001: $2.7 billion.
Number of Americans, annually, who request and receive a prescription for a
specific drug after seeing commercial for it: 8.5 million.
Number of Paxil prescriptions, 2001: 26 million.
Amount spent, 2001-02, to promote Paxil as a new anti-shyness drug: $60
million.
Estimated prescriptions of Paxil, 2002: 37 million.
Amount spent on lobbying by pharmaceutical firms, 1996-2002: $500 million.
Number of lobbyists for pharmaceutical industry: 600.
Number of former members of Congress now serving as lobbyists for
pharmaceutical industry: 24.
Amount of direct contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, 2002
campaigns: $20 million.
Percentage of that given to Republicans: 75.
Amount given to chair, House Ways and Means Subcommittee: $200,000.
To chair, Senate Finance Committee: $114,100.
Number of new drugs approved by FDA, 1989-2000: 1,035.
Number of the above that the FDA says present "no significant clinical
improvement" over older drugs: 558.
Number of times the drug giant GlaxoSmithKline was cited by FDA for "deceptive
and misleading" advertising, 1997-2001: 14.
Number of times it was fined for same: 0.
Total number of notices of "advertising violations" issued by FDA to drug
makers for print and TV advertisements that were misleading, 1997-2001: 88.
Amount of fines levied for such violations: $0.
Percentage of drug industry's clinical trials done by universities in the
early 1990s: 75.
Percentage of drug industry's clinical trials done by universities, 2000: 34.
Percentage done by private research firms, 2000: 66.
Amount required to develop new drug, according to pharmaceutical industry:
$500 million to $800 million.
Amount required to develop a new drug, according to independent economists:
$110 million to $240 million.
Amount invested annually in new drug development, 2001: $30 billion.
Amount saved annually by using medication instead of hospitals to treat
mentally ill: $25 billion.
Annual cost of prescription drug errors: $100 billion.
~~~~~~~
Greg Critser frequently writes about the politics of medicine. He is the
author of "Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World."
-end -
Redistributed by:
--
David Oaks, Executive Director
MindFreedom Support Coalition International
454 Willamette, Suite 216
PO Box 11284
Eugene, OR 97440-3484 USA
email: oaks@mindfreedom.org
web: http://mindfreedom.org
phone: (541) 345-9106
toll free in USA: 1-877-MAD-PRIDE
fax: (541) 345-3737
The mind is a terrible thing to... label, forcibly drug & electroshock..
Last Updated on
04/14/04
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