Nightline 10/12 -- DRUG WARS: The Strain of Expensive Prescription Drugs

DRUG WARS: The Strain of Expensive Prescription Drugs

October 12, 2004

After one of the most commonly prescribed drugs was yanked off the shelves last week, new questions are being asked about the way prescription drugs are regulated and priced in this country. Do they really have to be so very expensive? Tonight, a nationally prominent doctor says, "no they don't."


While in Europe last week, I momentarily feared that I had lost the bottle of prescription pills that I need to take daily. I groaned, not because of the inconvenience of refilling the prescription in a foreign country, but because the one-month supply had cost me more than $100. But it turns out, replacing the bottle of pills in Europe would cost only a fraction of what I paid here at home. Why should the identical bottle of pills cost so much more in the country where they were developed and manufactured?

This is a constant topic of conversation and consternation on the campaign trail this year for Sen. Kerry, President Bush or virtually any national politician. Seniors in this country bear the biggest burden of the high price of prescription drugs and they want to know what their politicians are going to do about it. In fact, they had the same questions four years ago during the last presidential campaign--and four years prior to that as well.

Tonight ABC's Jake Tapper looks into the drug cost issue and why so little seems to have changed. Senior citizens in the political battleground state of Pennsylvania tell him drug costs are so high that they sometimes don't even bother filling their prescriptions, putting their health at risk. To these key voters, drug prices are an urgent issue, as important as Iraq, terrorism and jobs. But with politicians on both sides of the aisle being courted by the powerful and wealthy pharmaceutical companies, is it likely to change?

The drug companies explain that the high cost of drugs is necessary to cover the vast expense of research and development of new drugs--the kinds of discoveries we all want and need the drug companies to make. Tonight Jake Tapper talks to a doctor who has long observed and interacted with the medical research community, Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine. She argues that the drug companies are motivated by profits more than anything else--and that American patients are paying the price. Is that a fair charge? Tonight Ted Koppel will talk to a panel of guests about the way drugs are priced-- and regulated--by the government. Now that Vioxx, the arthritis medication that some 2 million people were taking, has been yanked off the shelves for being too dangerous, many Americans are asking whether the government that is supposed to regulate the safety of prescription drugs, might be just a little too protective of the companies that make them.

We hope you'll join us.

Sara Just and the Nightline Staff
Washington D.C.

but I paid $75 for 20 antibiotic pills today. Pathetic!

I just paid $123 for 10 pills (an antibiotic)... over $12 PER PILL!!! (What the hell is this stuff... pure heroin?). It had been a bit less then $10 per pill before they passed that outrageous Medicare prescription bill.

the drug research for drug companies but disguise it as something else..like a grant or contract. Many Fed clinical trial also test these drugs for the drug companies so that means the Fed. gov't subsidizes efficacy of the drug for the companies. What is on so far is just the very tip of a huge iceberg.

to the drug companies. Congress passed laws to give patents to drug companies after using YOUR money to develop a drug which enable them to make money off of licensing as well. It's a bloody mess that most people will never understand because no one will take the time to explain it to them. Certainly Bush won't.

and most of that is to create new versions of the same old drugs to extend patents or avoid competitors' patents. Some drugs cost individuals hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month. I buy one drug that costs 25.00 per pill.

And for safety reasons? What bullshit!

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) spoke lucidly for a couple of minutes and Ted Koppel insults her, perhaps trying to be funny, by saying he'll let the opposition get a word in edgewise.

The Republicon dufuss maniacally repeats the word "safety" about every fourth word minute after minute and Ted never gives Debbie a single chance to respond except for a couple of words she put in edgewise.

Let's hear him talk about the SAFETY of anyone choosing between food, shelter, or life extending drugs.

Ted looked like a goofball, or a guy fouling up corrupt orders from above.