ABC NEWS SPECIAL REPORT With Peter Jennings
Peter Jennings – …Dr. Drummond Rennie is an editor at The Journal of the American Medical Association. He says researchers who are critical get attacked all the time. Do you actually believe, Dr. Rennie, that drug companies are intent on keeping the consumer on drugs, which are not as good as older drugs, for the simple requirement of profit?
Dr. Drummond Rennie – Yes. Yes, very much so. Absolutely. ….They’ve got to be prevented.
Peter Jennings – … The top 10 drug companies combined made profits of more than $37 billion in the year 2001. And you, the taxpayer, are subsidizing research that benefits the drug industry.
…Nancy Chockley runs an institute funded by managed care organizations…
Nancy Chockley – What we found is that over the last 12 years, that there’s really been a shift in the type of new drugs being approved by the FDA. And that we found that most of the growth was really in drugs that did not show any significant clinical improvement.
Peter Jennings – Eighty percent of the drugs which the FDA approves are not significantly different from the ones on the market already, and only 20 percent of the drugs are significantly new. Do you think the public even knows that? …We’re spending more on prescription drugs than we did in 1995. And the majority of the drugs approved by the FDA are simply modifications of old drugs…Consumers spend $90 billion more on prescription drugs last year than was spent just six years ago. And are we $90 billion healthier? …But what critics call this ‘gaming of the system’ may have a much more damaging result.
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