The Truth About Drug Companies–R&D, Marketing

The Truth About Drug Companies–R&D, Marketing – www.youtube.com www.encognitive.com DR MARCIA AGNELL Many Americans have wondered why prescription drugs have become so expensive while advertising for those drugs seems to grow exponentially. Former New England Journal of Medicine Editor Marcia Angell has some answers. The pharmaceutical industry, according to Angell, is fraught with corruption and doing a disservice to customers, the federal government, and to the medical establishment itself. In The Truth About the Drug Companies, Angell explains how a huge portion of the revenue generated by “Big Pharma” goes not into research and development but into aggressive marketing campaigns to sell their product. She describes how, even though the drug companies claim that it costs them an average of 802 million dollars per drug to develop new medicines, that figure is obscenely inflated since it factors in marketing as well as expected interest the company would have received had they invested the money in the open market. Meanwhile, Angell says, most of the R & D work is done by colleges and universities funded by the government. There are also problems with the drugs themselves, Angell indicates, since a majority are “me-too drugs”, slightly modified versions of existing products which meant to address concerns of consumers most likely to spend money on pharmaceuticals. Thus, the market is filled with remarkably similar drugs to treat depression and high cholesterol while potentially life-saving medicines for diseases …

Depression, drugs and the DSM: a tale of self-interest and public outrage

Filed under: drugs to treat depression

Daniel Carlat, psychiatrist and author of Unhinged, however, has criticised the discipline for embracing medication-based treatment when there is no evidence to support the idea that depression is caused by a “neurochemical imbalance”.
Read more on The Conversation

Ketamine could rapidly treat depression, study finds

Filed under: drugs to treat depression

New research finds the drug could cure depression in hours, but there's a hitch: This is the same drug used recreationally as 'special K', and its 'high' can include hallucinations. By John PlattMon, Oct 08 2012 at 12:04 PM EST. Depression Photo: Lloyd …
Read more on Mother Nature Network