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chemical synthesizers that supply the FDA-approved active ingredients to the drug manufacturers. JRI
collected the data and pricing for the active ingredients and the consumer markup price for the most
popular drugs in the U.S. For example, the popular drug Xanax sells for $136. At a cost price of 0.02 for
its active ingredients, the markup for Xanax is a staggering 683,950 percent. Norvask sells for $188.29
but costs $0.14 to make; its markup is 134,493 percent. Zolofts’s markup is 11,821 percent. Prozac is
among the biggest money makers of all times, with a 224,973 percent markup. Lipitor is one of the most
expensive drugs to produce ($5.80), but it sells for $272.37’ its markup is 4,696 percent. Some generic
drugs were marked up as much as 3,000 percent or more.
CBS’s famous Sixty Minutes national TV show (aired 1st April 2007), revealed the biggest ever health
scandal, which so far cost the American public nearly $1.5 trillion. The scam is orchestrated by the
pharmaceutical companies, which through powerful lobbying in the American Congress, helped pass a
prescription drug bill that prevents Medicare from buying prescription drugs at a discounted rate for their
members. Other institutions, such as the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), negotiate the price
for prescription drugs directly with the pharmaceutical companies and pay merely 10 percent of the
amount that Medicare has to pay for the top 10 prescription drugs. Since this bill was passed over three
years ago, Medicare has been legally required to pay an average of 60 percent more than the VA pays for
the same prescription drugs. Most other countries in the world, which receive their prescription drugs
from the same source as Medicare, also pay the lower rates. The Medicare drug plan, devised by the
pharmaceutical industry and approved by lawmakers benefiting from it, will earn the pharmaceutical
companies over 1.5 trillion dollars over the next 10 years; all paid for by the taxpayers who finance the
Medicare program. In other words, all U.S. taxpayers directly contribute to the already astronomical
profits of the pharmaceutical industry.
Just consider the enormous profiteering taking place in the cancer industry. The newer anticancer
drugs are very expensive, especially when they are used in combination. The price of drugs for eight
weeks of treatment can be $10,000 or more. If other drugs are added, this raises the cost of the medication
alone to $20,000–$30,000. According to Johns Hopkins University Health Alert, “When these therapies
improve survival by only a few months, this presents troubling issues for cancer patients, their doctors,
insurers, and society as a whole.” Considering that the production costs for these drugs are a tiny fraction
of their selling price and that nearly one in every two people in the U.S. will develop cancer at some stage
in his or her life, you can readily understand why the cancer industry makes no real attempt to find a true
cure for cancer. Instead, it tries everything in its power to keep this most profitable business in the world
growing.
David Walker, who is the nation’s top accountant—the comptroller general of the United States—said
the following about the new Medicare plan. “The prescription drug bill was probably the most fiscally
irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s.” He perceives it as the most powerful force driving the
United States toward bankruptcy. With one stroke of the pen, Walker says, the federal government
increased existing Medicare obligations nearly 40 percent over the next 75 years. “We’d have to have
eight trillion dollars today, invested in treasury rates, to deliver on that promise,” Walker explains. Asked
how much we actually have, Walker says, “Zip.” In addition to the financial fiasco, the plan forces
millions of older Americans to accept inferior drug coverage. All the government does is to borrow
money to pay for what it cannot afford to pay. The main beneficiaries are the drug companies and those
politicians who are paid handsomely to close their eyes to the fraud at hand.
The drug companies (and politicians) are not the only ones making a fortune from these drugs. The
pharmacies also take a big cut. For example, if you want to buy a brand name drug that costs $100 for 100
pills, but your pharmacists offers you a generic version of the same drug for $80, you may think you are
getting a great deal. This is not the case. The pharmacy gets the 100 pills for $10 and sells them to you for