Duct Tape Blues

You're big GOP donators from the Pharmaceutical industry are such a tease.: "Mr. President,
I am getting buried in drug commercials on TV. I desperately need TIVO.

If I can believe what I am told, I can have four-hour erections, avoid peeing ten times a day, eliminate allergies, and get a delightful night's sleep if I take the drugs they advertise.

I might get the same results, if I were with my hot girlfriend who enjoys watching good porn, quit drinking two six packs per day, stayed inside during hay fever season and did an honest day's work occasionally, but what's the fun in that; where would the drug companies make their money?

I am sure many sick people pay a lot of attention to TV drug ads and to all the latest medical breakthroughs. The shame of it is; millions of Americans don't have insurance to pay for them.

There is always Canada and Mexico's popular drug-runs for cash-strapped Americans in desperate need I guess.

Many of the best drugs, seem to be for well-to-do Americans. More people could afford many of these miraculous drugs if generic equivalents were available except the original patent holders of the drugs and their manufacturing process, really don't want to see that happen.

Powerful drug companies are doing everything to discourage the production of generic equivalents of their drugs.

They pay other drug companies millions of dollars to abstain from making generic drugs, they lobby Congress and influence trade agreements to discourage other countries from making their own generic equivalents as well. And you did your part when you cut the FDA's office of generic drug research.


I hear how much our drug companies say they have to spend to get a new drug out, but they fail to explain how much they spend on advertising and marketing compared to the money they spend on actual research. According to University of Rochester Medical Center the 'Direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising is a $3.2 billion industry in the United States' in 2005. The amount of money spent on research pales in comparison with the billions of dollars spent on promoting existing drugs on TV.


The Truth About the Drug Companies, Random House, 2004, written by Marcia Angell, a professor in the Harvard Medical School Department of Social Medicine and former editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine explains, 'Most of the research is done by the National Institutes of Health and by large universities, along with small biotech companies.' In other words, most drug research is done by tax-supported agencies. The drug companies charge high prices to the public, reaping huge financial benefits from research paid for by that public.'

The U.S. pharmaceutical industry also fails to mention that they spend an estimated $14.5 billion annually on outsourcing the manufacturing, formulation, and packaging of drugs, according to Desmond Mascarenhas, Chief Executive of consultant Bioexpertise.

Drug commercials remind me just what big hypocrites the pharmaceutical companies really are. News about medical drug break thorough are cruel and give false hope to the sick and elderly because unless they have the money.

What is the aim of those TV ads anyway? Do they want us to demand the medication from our doctors? If we do that, it kind of defeats all the time they spent in medical school, their internship, and medical experience. If our doctor prescribes the advertised medicine to us at our request, it just makes them our drug dealer.

Don't get me wrong I'm not anti-research; from it. There have been some miraculous discoveries about gene therapy, surgical instruments, techniques, arterial shunts, diagnostic machines, bone replacement materials, anti-rejection medications, more efficient, reliable pacemakers are just a few of the wonderful advancements made in the last decade. The war in Iraq has led to life-saving surgical techniques caused by IED explosions. New artificial limbs have improved the lives of thousands of severely wounded soldiers.

And yet to the average American, announcements of new research and medication are all a morbid tease.

The average American won't directly benefit from many of medical science breakthroughs. ... they are prohibitively expensive and the drug companies like it that way.


Yesterday, the Guardian Unlimited uncovered a plan by a major drug company to block access to a medicine that is effectively and cheaply saving thousands of people from going blind. The company wants to launch the same product in smaller dosage and charge an outrageous amount of money.

For example, Ophthalmologists from around the world, learned that by injecting tiny quantities of a colon cancer drug called Avastin into the eyes of patients with 'wet macular degeneration.' 'The Ophthalmologists reported remarkable success at a very low cost because one vial can be split up and used to treat dozens of patients.'

Genentech, the company that invented Avastin, learned what the Ophthalmologists had done and applied for a licensing a fragment of Avastin called Lucentis which will be packaged in tiny quantities similar to the quantities used by the Ophthalmologists and plan to charge 100 times the cost per dose.


In high school, there were a few girls who liked flirted with the boys only to have their hormones dashed after they get the girl in a car's backseat and found out she wouldn't let him make it to second or third base much less hit a home run. They called those girls 'prick teasers.'

I think millions of average and poor Americans would agree the drug companies act just like those girls; they surely fit the 'prick' part of that definition and you helped.

From: comments@whitehouse.gov
Date: June 18, 2006 3:35:14 AM CDT
To: guzmatom@mac.com

On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your correspondence.
We appreciate hearing your views and welcome your suggestions.
Due to the large volume of e-mail received, the White House is
unable to respond to every message, and therefore this response
is an autoreply.

Thank you again for taking the time to write."

(Via My letters to Bush.)

# posted by Thomas @ 8:51 AM