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Current Issue | (September 2003)
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With A Stroke Of The Pen Part Two
------------------------------------------------------------------ Page 1 of 6 There is widespread agreement that the rising cost of providing prescription drugs is a major factor underlying our nation’s out-of-control health care spending. Indeed, it is that fundamental fact that motivated Congress to try and provide a prescription drug benefit for Senior Citizens through Medicare. But, the efforts to provide more and more money to pay for expensive prescription drugs ignores another fundamental fact: the reason costs are rising so much is that Big Pharma is aggressively manipulating the system to expand the number of people required to take prescription drugs and further fatten their already bloated profits. Last month, in part one of “With a Stroke of the Pen” we discussed how Big Pharma and its allies in the medical community manipulated the rules concerning “standards of care” to make large numbers of people previously were viewed as healthy “sick.” They did this by changing the rules concerning treatment of people suffering from such things as high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels and obesity. These rule changes resulted in 45 million people being classified as having high blood pressure, 36 million as having high cholesterol and 25 million as being clinically obese – OVERNIGHT! Most important, from Big Pharma’s point of view, all of them were suddenly candidates for drug therapy to correct their new “illnesses.” As huge a windfall as these rule changes were, however, they pale in comparison with some of the other tricks Big Pharma has up its sleeve. Among the most despicable is the move to expand the administration of prescription drugs to children. THE RUN ON RITALINWhile much of attention regarding the explosion of prescription drug use has focused largely on Senior Citizens, an even more ominous trend has been ignored. While prescription drug spending by those between the ages of 35 and 49 grew by 23 percent in 2001, and spending by those over 65 increased by 10 percent, spending on prescription drugs for children under 19 grew by 28 percent – the highest rate of all categories! Although most of the spending on children’s prescriptions was for drugs to treat allergies, asthma and infections, an increasing proportion is accounted for by drugs to treat neurological and psychological disorders. Indeed, spending for drugs such as Ritalin to treat alleged cases of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has increased by 500 percent since 1990. Overall, spending for such drugs accounted for 8 percent of all drug outlays for children in 2002! Fully five percent of schoolchildren – primarily boys – are now diagnosed as having ADHD. As a result, 6 million U.S. school children now take Ritalin Daily! |
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