Big Pharma by the Numbers: Just Say Yes to Drugs

For as much resistance much of the public gives the idea of seeing a chiropractor, the same cannot be said for their use of prescription drugs. Based on the numbers we are either sicker or healthier then ever. My money is on the former.

The one thing you have to give credit to Pharmaceutical companies are their marketing strategies and goals, because they are winning a Wall Street profit war in the guise of saving lives. Although the number of prescription drugs each person is on per year is projected to continue to increase through 2011, the statistics do not speak to longer life spans, nor are people happier with the quality of their life.

Just say yes to prescription drugs:

American Prescription Drug Use

“The average number of prescriptions [drugs] per person, annually, in 1993 was seven.

The average number of prescriptions [drugs] per person, annually, in 2000 was eleven.

[The average number of prescriptions drugs per person], annually, in 2004 was twelve.

The total number of annual prescriptions [drugs] in the United States now stands at about 3 billion.

The cost per year is about $180 billion, headed to an estimated $414 billion by 2011. Pretty soon, you are talking real money.”

Generation Rx
How Prescription Drugs Are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies
Greg Critser
Houghton Mifflin Company
2005
Page 2

The one thing that we can assured of are the people who are profiting from the increase in prescription drug use may not be healthier or happier, but they will be a whole lot richer.