Ive told you many times in the past that Big Pharma is more interested in selling its products than developing products that work. Now theres new evidence that proves just that. Two York University researchers just published proof that Big Pharma spends nearly twice as much on advertising as it does on research and development.
According to the study, Big Pharma spends 24.4% of its revenue (sales) on advertising vs. 13.4% on research and development. That is about twice as much to peddle their snake oil as to develop products that might actually help you. Their U.S. sales amount to $235.4 billion! That is a lot of money paying for advertising.
America is Big Pharmas largest market for dumping its petrochemical snake oil. We are approximately 45% of the world market. That is about $61,000 worth of advertising for each American physician every year. If they would spend more on research and find products that actually work, they would not have to spend so much on advertising. Big Pharma is not interested in products that work, though. They are interested only in sales. Heres more proof.
One of the study authors admits that the advertising figures are uunderstated. Theres just no way to estimate the amount of ghost writing and off label promotion paid by Pharma. This is important. You see, The FDA forbids Big Pharma from coming right out and telling physicians to use their chemicals for anything not outright approved by the FDA. How does Big Pharma skirt the rules? It writes papers and promotional material. Then they covertly pay private physicians to put their names on the work. Now its not Pharma committing crimes directly, but paying physicians to do it indirectly.
Please, think twice when you see a commercial for any drug. Know that its not placed in front of you for your own good. And know that if theres a receptor in your body that this synthetic chemical affects, that God placed that receptor there for something He made. And His something is hardly likely to cause harm, as might the synthetic chemical version.
Ref: ScienceDaily, January 7, 2008.