Medical Prescriptions in USA: Background information when reading Generation Rx

Medical Prescriptions in USA

This article relates to Generation Rx

• The average number of prescriptions per person per year soared from 7 in 1993, to 12 in 2004.
• According to the American Society of Clinical Pharmacologists, in 2000 27% of elderly patients received 9+ medications (compared to 17% in 1997).
• The amount spent to advertise prescription drugs directly to consumers in 2004 was $4.45 billion (up from $2m in 1980) .
• The number of Americans who annually request and receive a prescription for a specific drug after seeing a commercial is 8.5 million.
• GlaxoSmithKline was cited by the FDA for deceptive and misleading advertising 14 times between 1997 and 2001 but was never fined.
• The FDA issued 88 notices of violation between 1997 and 2001 for misleading print and TV ads but could not levy a single fine.
• Between 1996 and 2002, the industry spent half a billion dollars to employ 600 full-time lobbyists, among them 24 former members of Congress.
• Congress have passed a Medicare prescription drug act that forbids the federal government from negotiating for lower drug prices. The congressman who shepherded the bill is now the $2-million-a-year president of PhRMA, the industry's main lobbying group.
• Pain killers such as Celebrex (and recently withdrawn Bextra and Vioxx) alter the delicate environment of artery walls, making them less able to contain the "bursting" of plaque and small bumps, leading to blockage and heart attacks. Vioxx alone is thought to have caused more than 100,000 heart attacks before being pulled from the market.

Filed under Medicine, Science and Tech

This "beyond the book article" relates to Generation Rx. It originally ran in October 2005 and has been updated for the January 2007 paperback edition. Go to magazine.