Overview
Pharmaceutical companies make important life-saving medicines. But
that shouldn't give them license to drive up drug prices, ignore the
risks of harmful side effects, or block needed reforms in Congress and
the states. Consider:
• Pharmaceutical companies use
direct-to-consumer ads to sell their latest, most expensive drugs. The
industry claims that these ads help to educate consumers, but a U.S.
PIRG analysis of FDA records for the years 2001 to 2005 found that the
ads for 150 different drugs were false or misleading.
• Merck,
the manufacturer of Vioxx, continued to market its painkiller to
doctors and patients years after the company had substantial evidence
of increased the risk of heart problems. FDA researchers estimate that,
in less than 5 years, Vioxx may have caused as many as 139,000 heart
attacks and strokes.
• The industry continues to use
unscrupulous marketing techniques to influence prescriptions that
doctors write, including fancy meals, travel junkets and money—in the
form of “consultant” fees.
• More than 3 million seniors are
falling into the doughnut hole—Medicare’s prescription drug coverage
gap. Seniors have to keep paying their monthly premiums, but Medicare
does not pay for their drugs until seniors pay $3,600 in out-of-pocket
expenses for their medicines. When Congress created the Medicare
prescription drug benefit, the pharmaceutical industry and its
lobbyists inserted a provision that prohibits the program from
negotiating bulk-rate discounts for drugs.
• An overwhelming
majority of Democrats (92 percent), Independents (85 percent) and
Republicans (74 percent) support allowing Medicare to negotiate drug
prices.
NHPIRG is working to change the industry-backed
law. We supported the “Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation
Act, which overwhelmingly passed the House earlier this year.
Unfortunately, the bill narrowly failed in the Senate. We are working
to bring the bill up for another vote in the Senate.
