The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality recently issued a report that placed heart drugs at the top of the prescription drug spending list at $31.7 billion annually. This outpaced the next closest therapeutic drug class (hormones at $24.5 billion) by nearly 30%! Anti-Cholesterol drugs followed close behind in 4th place at $21.5 billion. When added together, these two heart related drug classes accounted for approximately 30% of all prescription drug expenditures.
As a heart health consumer activist I am often the first to criticize the drug industry for its "profit over people" motives. For example, the subject report also lists Anti-Cholesterol drugs as having the highest average expense (more than twice the average of the lowest drug group). I buy a lot of those drugs and can confirm they cost a bundle. But, some like to claim that the pharmaceutical industry is nothing but a license to print money. Trust me, it ain't so. If it were that easy my stock portfolio would contain nothing but drug companies (I got an "A" in Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management in business school). Pfizer just took a multi-billion dollar bath on torcetrapib - a failed drug I was counting on to help me. What frightened me even more is that this colossal financial failure might scare away additional investment in other "reverse cholesterol transport" agents. That would be a travesty in my humble opinion.
The bottom-line is this, heart drugs mean big sales and profit dollars which, in turn, attracts big research and development dollars. Call me mercenary but, when my life hangs in the balance, this kind of greed is good! So, until they discover the "magic bullet" for heart disease I remain
Greedily Yours,
HeartHawk
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Sometimes Greed is Good!
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2 comments:
Swoon.... WAIT!!! OMG, they left out the fried dill pickles... LOL! I have the recipe if anyone wants it.
Frank looks a tad puffy, and his customers are all obviously overweight or obese... by coincidence or by cause? I sure hope those fry cooks know CPR, 'cause I don't think that kind of 'regional cuisine' ever gives a person much warning that they are going to die... like right there on the spot.
Post-prandial lipid surge? Hell, that's looks like a blood bath to me!
Frankly, when I moved to Texas almost 14 years ago from California, I was shocked (well, actually in a lot of ways). 'Fried' was not something I was raised on and I was dumbfounded to see this was a major feature of Texas 'cuisine'.
My first trip to a Sam's Club here was an 'ahah' experience... the frozen foods section had case after case of fried foods. Like Alice in Wonderland time... and nowhere could I buy the mesclun salad mixes that were so available in California back then.
Believe me, things have come a long way in Texas since then. Now I can get just about every food I could buy in California... and the warehouse stores make an attempt to stock some organics and things that don't require frying (although there are still too many, IMO), and grocery stores do an even better job with organics and such.
I do think that restaurant is mostly an anachronism, a throw back to another time, else Bob Phillips wouldn't be featuring it on his Texas Country Reporter series... BUT, with satellite TV and the proliferation of health reports on TV and in magazines and newspapers, there's no excuse for the overwhelming ignorance shown by those roly poly restaurant patrons in Snook, TX.
Given that those good ole boys are still breathing after eating that slop IS a testament to the body's ability to survive despite such deliberate punishment. I will bet that the only cardiologist anyone who frequents that restaurant ever sees is interventional... or maybe in Snook they just chow down and wait for the BIG ONE (Coroner)?
JMO...
madcook
Cypress, TX
Hey Mad Cook!
Welcome to my blog. I have heard good things about your blog including some comments from Dr. Davis. I was so awed (shocked) by the video I posted it prominently.
Regards,
HH
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