Canada Drug Talk:

Lately I have been spending a lot of time at Politics - Total Control.

It features political news, commentary and candidate comparisons.

Their political search engine gives you all the political news and commentary about any given issue with a single click.

Here are some of the issues I care about and search often:

big pharma

prescription drugs

healthcare

reimportation

Giuliani

In my opinion, Giuliani is the worst candidate - please do NOT vote for Giuliani. I find his exploitation of 9-11 offensive and his use of fearmongering to keep grandparents from importing drugs from Canada despicable. In the past, he has been a mouthpiece for big pharma and I believe that he will continue to sacrifice the interests of public healthcare in order to increase profits for the prescription drug industry:

Giuliani has been Reduced to a Corporate Mouthpiece

The current administration sold us all out to the prescription drug industry by protecting big pharma from competition and barring the government from negotiating drug prices (the governments of all other industrialized nations negotiate drug prices and pay a fraction of what Americans pay for identical prescription drugs). I believe that Giuliani will do the same or worse and pray that he never gets elected to any public office.

"It is common knowledge that drug companies spend a lot on promotion... But even I didn't realize that the figure was as high as we estimate it is."

Joel Lexchin is with the School of Health Policy and Management, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

In a report entitled The Cost of Pushing Pills: A New Estimate of Pharmaceutical Promotion Expenditures in the United States published in the Public Library of Science Medicine, authors Marc-André Gagnon and Joel Lexchin conclude:

"From this new estimate, it appears that pharmaceutical companies spend almost twice as much on promotion as they do on R&D. These numbers clearly show how promotion predominates over R&D in the pharmaceutical industry, contrary to the industry's claim. While the amount spent on promotion is not in itself a confirmation of Kefauver's depiction of the pharmaceutical industry, it confirms the public image of a marketing-driven industry and provides an important argument to petition in favor of transforming the workings of the industry in the direction of more research and less promotion."

Editor's Note:

The Kefauver referred to in the conclusion is Estes Kefauver, a former Senator who accused the prescription drug industry of predatory pricing and excessive marketing in the 1950's. He launched a public review of the industry through the Senate's anti-trust and monopoly subcommittee.

Sources:

The Cost of Pushing Pills: A New Estimate of Pharmaceutical Promotion Expenditures in the United States by Marc-André Gagnon and Joel Lexchin (Public Library of Science Medicine)

Drug Companies Spend Nearly Double on Marketing Compared with Research: Study (The Canadian Press)