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Letter to the Federal Drug Administration

My name is Jason Reynolds, Executive Director of the Oregon Consumer League. These comments pertain to the US Food and Drug Administration regulation of advertising-- most specifically pharmaceutical company advertising and commercial speech.

This is a protected industry, which sells medicines developed at taxpayer expense. It then sells those medicines more cheaply to Canadians and Mexicans than to Americans.  They also flood the Congress with money. And the Bush campaign. I guess that's why President Bush named the pharmaceutical industry's top lobbyist to be the FDA's in-house counsel. This is an appalling conflict of interest.

The result is I can't afford a prescription that may keep me out of the hospital. I run out tomorrow.  It costs $200 month and I have a limited income.  I don't take a second medicine that I need because it also costs $200 month-- and I can't afford it. I dread going to the doctor these days-- for fear that he'll prescribe a medicine I can't afford.

It's already the most profitable industry in the United States.

€ $2.5 billion in direct-to-consumer marketing in 2000

€ $4 billion they spent on marketing to doctors

This money comes out of their astonishing profits, driven largely by enormous returns on aggressively marketed meds - with 34 of these best selling drugs making up more than 50% of the industry's skyrocketing profits.  The drug companies are also raising prices well over the rate of inflation.  To pick just three: Allegra’s gone up 11%, OxyContin up 15%, and Accutane up nearly 23%.