Drugs drugs drugs

So I've been reading Katherine Greider's book, "The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off Its Customers", or to be specific - ripping off American Consumers. This book fills an enormous gaping hole in the literature - a compact, well-written expose of the extortionist known as the pharmaceutical industry. What better way to blackmail the consumer with the threat of death? I can't think of a better way to boost the bottom-line of my profit margin.

Lest you believe the industry's self-justifications that the cost of $10,000 for a single dose of drugs for dying AIDS victims, are simply to recoup costly R&D, Greider dissects these claims and puts it into a well-focused perspective. After all, the pharmaceutical industry is the world's *most* profitable industry, outstripping even weapons manufacturing. And most of the cost of a drug is spent on marketing. Selling directly to the consumer is but the tip of the iceberg. There are almost 100,000 salesreps out there, making good money by bribing doctors, and manipulating them into prescribing the most costly drugs instead of cheaper alternatives.

This was driven home to me the other day. It was the first time I went to my Primary Care Physician, the doctor assigned to me by my work's health insurance plan. Walking into the office, I noticed an air-hostess, or at least, I thought she was - tall, beautiful, well-groomed in a business suit, hair tied in a bun, and pulling a luggage suitcase on wheels behind her. As I was in there to make an appointment, I was quickly out of there. As I entered the elevator, the air hostess lugged her suitcase in after her. As the door closes and the elevator goes down, I look down into her suitcase, and realise that she was not an air-hostess. it wasn't a suitcase, but a shopping cart full of drugs.