BACKGROUND
With prices as high as $1,000 per pill, many patients are now forced to choose between putting food on the table or purchasing medicine, while pharma companies pocket billions of dollars in profits.
“DRUG$” breaks down the intricacies of the drug pricing system by incorporating interviews with patients, prominent policymakers and employees of major pharmaceutical and insurance companies, as well as highly respected doctors, scientists and economists.
Due to misguided legislation, there are more stringent laws protecting drug patents than human lives. Drug companies use patents to perpetuate monopolies by making slight changes to existing drugs, a practice known as “evergreening,” which prevents competition and blocks the production of affordable generic drugs, ensuring perpetual price hikes on decades-old medicines.
Big Pharma companies claim their earnings are poured into research and development which leads to further advancements, but this is FALSE. They buy taxpayer-funded research, then use billions of dollars in profits to aggressively market their products directly to consumers and to reward their CEOs with multimillion-dollar salaries and bonuses for appeasing stockholders—NOT for healing the sick.
Unless the pharmaceutical industry undergoes radical reform, the entire healthcare system will inevitably collapse, leaving society overburdened and without access to quality medicine. The American public must wake up to this crisis and take action, before it’s too late.
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