DRUG COST AND MARKUP UNBELIEVABLE
Let’s hear it for Costco!! (This is just mind-boggling!) Make sure you read all the way past the list of the drugs. The woman that signed below is a Budget Analyst out of federal Washington, DC offices. What she discovers is unbelievable corporate greed. So, what else is new? Greed rules in America, right?
Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company for the active ingredient in prescription medications? Some people think it must cost a lot since many drugs sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA. As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension, a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United States contain active ingredients made in other countries. In our independent investigation of how much profit drug companies really make, we obtained the actual price of active ingredients used in some of the most popular drugs sold in America. The data below speaks for itself.
| Drug | Dose | Consumer price (100 tablets) | Cost of general active ingredients | Percent markup |
| Celebrex | 100 mg | $130.27 | $0.60 | 21.712% |
| Claritin | 1 0 mg | $215.17 | $0.71 | 30.306% |
| Keflex | 250 mg | $157.39 | $1.88 | 8.372% |
| Lipitor | 20 mg | $272.37 | $5.80 | 4.696% |
| Norvasc | 10 mg | $188.29 | $0.14 | 134.493% |
| Paxil | 20 mg | $220.27 | $7.60 | 2.898% |
| Prevacid | 30 mg | $44.77 | $1.01 | 34.136% |
| Prilosec | 20 mg | $360.97 | $0.52 | 69.417% |
| Prozac | 20 mg | $247.47 | $0.11 | 224.973% |
| Tenormin | 50 mg | $104.47 | $0.13 | 80,362% |
| Vasotec | 10 mg | $102.37 | $0.20 | 51.185% |
| Xanax | 1 mg | $136.79 | $0.024 | 569.958% |
| Zestril | 20 mg | $89.89 | $3.20 | 2.809% |
| Zithromax | 600 mg | $1,482.19 | $18.78 | 7.892% |
| Zocor | 40 mg | $350.27 | $8.63 | 4.059% |
| Zoloft | 50 mg | $206.87 | $1.75 | 11.821% |
Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous, I thought everyone should know about this. Please read the following and pass it on as appropriate. It pays to shop around. This helps to solve the mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreen’s on every corner.
On Monday night, Steve Wilson, an investigative reporter for Channel 7 News in Detroit, did a story on generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in his investigation, that some of these generic drugs were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that’s not a typo…..three thousand percent! So often, we blame the drug companies for the high cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies themselves. For example, if you had to buy a prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you might pay $100 for 100 pills. The pharmacist might tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they would only cost $80, making you think you are “saving” $20. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10!
At the end of the report, one of the anchors asked Mr. Wilson whether or not there were any pharmacies that did not adhere to this practice, and he said that Costco consistently charged little over their cost for the generic drugs. I went to the Costco site, where you can look up any drug, and get its online price. It says that the in-store prices are consistent with the online prices. I was appalled. Just to give you one example from my own experience, I had to use the drug, Compazine, which helps prevent nausea in chemo patients. I used the generic equivalent, which cost $54.99 for 60 pills at CVS. I checked the price at Costco, and I could have bought 100 pills for $19.89. For 145 of my pain pills, I paid $72.57. I could have got 150 at Costco for $28.08.
I would like to mention, that although Costco is a “membership” type store, you do NOT have to be a member to buy prescriptions there, as it is a federally regulated substance. You just tell them at the door that you wish to use the pharmacy, and they will let you in. (this is true)
I went there this past Thursday and asked them. I am asking each of you to please help me by copying this letter, and passing it into your own e-mail, and send it to everyone you know with an e-mail address.
Sharon L. Davis
Budget Analyst
U.S . Department of Commerce>
Room 6839
Office Ph: 202-482-4458
Office Fax: 202-482-5480
E-mail Address: sdavis@doc.gov
Lipitor: Victim of Statistical Contortionism
Statistical contortionism is the art of converting healthy people into patients by using numbers to exaggerate drug benefits. Lipitor is a prime example. Drug companies and physicians use “relative risk reduction” while ignoring the “absolute risk reduction” in order to promote Lipitor use to a wider audience. This practice of statistical contortionism is akin to hiding evidence because it exaggerates benefits. See for yourself.
Lipitor promoters insist that those with so-called high cholesterol can achieve a 36% “relative risk reduction” in heart attack by using the cholesterol-lowering drug. The contortionists ignore that the same raw data can yield a more revealing “absolute risk reduction” of a paltry 1%. Using absolute risk reduction is more accurate because it compares the actual difference between the treated and untreated groups. Unfortunately, it is not good for increasing sales.
That Lipitor does not prevent heart attack is a death-blow to promoters. It goes virtually unnoticed because they push the absolute risk reduction under the drug-rug while magnifying relative risk reduction. This type of advertising disguised as science is the most dangerous trend in journalism today. It promotes drug use among healthy populations who are needlessly putting themselves at risk for adverse effects of Lipitor like cancer and heart failure.
Reference: Hidden Truth about Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs
The Biggest Culprit in the Heart Disease Pandemic – 4 Ways to Avoid It
By Shane Ellison, M.Sc. www.healthmyths.net © 2006
One minute you are enjoying a stroll in the park and the next you feel as if an elephant just stepped on you. Clutching your chest and violently gasping for air, you suffer the eventual outcome of heart disease: a heart attack. This year alone, this silent killer will catch up to over a million Americans. Each and every one of them will die prematurely from this unfortunate scenario. Worldwide, it will kill more people than any other affliction. This can be stopped.
The underlying cause of a heart attack is narrowing of the arteries. The process is known medically as atherosclerosis. Beating a dead horse, cardiologists confidently describe atherosclerosis as a plumbing problem: Fat and cholesterol-laden gunk gradually builds up within the arteries. If this build-up (plaque) grows thick enough, it eventually plugs an affected “pipe.” This prevents nutrients and oxygen-rich blood from reaching its intended tissue (technically known as ischemia). Blood-starved tissue dies. When a part of the cardiac muscle or the brain is affected, a heart attack or stroke occurs
In 2004, Time magazine told the world that there’s just one problem with the cholesterol hypothesis: “sometimes it’s dead wrong.” More than half of the people who suffer from heart attacks have “low cholesterol.” And “high” cholesterol (300-350mg/dL) is a natural and healthy part of aging. The higher total blood cholesterol the longer people live. Targeting this natural phenomenon, drug companies have convinced people otherwise – while profiting immensely.
If fat and cholesterol were the culprit in heart disease due to their ability to “plug the pipes,” then these ubiquitous substances would clog the entire 100,000 miles of adult veins, arteries and capillaries. Instead, 90% of the time, heart disease is caused by the narrowing of the spaghetti-sized coronary arteries – those that rest over the heart. The rest of the cardiovascular system that nourishes the body remains perfectly healthy despite being rich in cholesterol and fat. This common sense observation renders the cholesterol and fat theory of heart disease obsolete. If you want to avoid feeling like an elephant is crushing your chest, look beyond cholesterol.
Coronary arteries bear little resemblance to pipes. Instead, they are made up of muscle sandwiched between two “structural” layers. When the muscle of arteries becomes inflamed “atherosclerosis” or heart disease can set in. This is initiated by damage to the innermost structural layer that faces the bloodstream. Science has made great strides in identifying what causes damage to this layer.
Aside from smoking, the biggest culprit in today’s heart attack pandemic is high blood sugar. It leads to a condition known as insulin resistance or early Type-II diabetes. Suicide in slow motion, insulin resistance causes blood sugar to float in the blood longer than it should. Muscle no longer vacuums it from the bloodstream. Over time, blood sugar reacts with amino acids floating nearby. The product of this reaction is a Swiss Army knife termed advance glycated end (AGE) product.
AGE products cut and stab deep into structural layers of coronary arteries. Medically, this is termed glycation. The slicing and dicing explains why diabetics have four times the risk of heart attack relative to non-diabetics. Overcome with high blood sugar, they face the butchering process of AGE products.
Coronary arteries are most susceptible to AGE products due to the mechanical stress in the region (heart beat). As the heart beats, the structural layer, being made up of collagen and elastin, becomes sensitive to them. Arteries not subject to mechanical stress do not expose the structural layer as readily. Therefore, they are not as sensitive to the butchering
Damage caused by AGE products leads to “crosslinking.” Once crosslinking occurs, supple, healthy, coronary arteries become rigid – the same thing can happen to skin. This is where the name atherosclerosis was derived. The term combines two Greek words, athere (porridge) and sclerosis (hardening).
Crosslinking causes the body’s natural repair mechanism to take over. The inflammation cascade begins. This is an age-old immunological defense mechanism. Among the smooth muscle of coronary arteries, inflammation acts as nature’s band aid. Plaque can be the end result.
Inflammation and plaque causes the cavity that allows blood flow through the arteries to become narrow – occlusion occurs. The whole process of glycation, crosslinking and inflammation can begin as early as three years of age!
Fortunately, narrowing of coronary arteries is not a death sentence. Arteries do not become swollen so much that it shrinks the bloodstream to a pinpoint. And healthy arteries have the ability to accommodate for the inflammation by “relaxing” or dilating. This ensures that blood flow continues without interruption – and that heart disease goes unnoticed.
This protection of dilation is primarily dependent on the short-lived molecule known as nitric oxide. Scientists Robert F. Furchgott, PhD, Louis J. Ignarro, PhD, and Ferid Murad, MD, PhD received the Nobel Prize for the paramount discovery concerning nitric oxide. Without this essential molecule, excessive narrowing of arteries can manifest into hypertension, poor circulation, erectile dysfunction and decreased tolerance to exercise.
Nutritional approaches such as l-arginine and grape seed extract that maximize nitric oxide have proven to be a bonanza for heart disease patients who want to curb their annoying symptoms of heart disease naturally.
Most heart attacks and strokes creep up on victims when inflammation goes haywire. This is typical among Americans because inflammation-causing sugar has become a dominant ingredient in their food. Consequently, what should be temporary for healing becomes long-term and deadly. The overly aggressive inflammation cascade causes plaque (nature’s band aid) to rupture. This rupturing triggers the emergence of a blood clot (thrombus).
The combination of narrow arteries and a blood clot causes a person’s fate to become sealed, along with their coronary arteries. This prevents blood from reaching downstream to the heart and/or brain. The condition is known as “ischemia.” Deprived of blood and oxygen, a heart attack or stroke is the outcome. The elephant is standing on its victim.
In summary, heart disease is not a disease of clogged pipes due to cholesterol and fat. It is a disease of glycation, crosslinking, inflammation and more inflammation. The inflammation occurs within – not on – arterial walls. Today, it is typically the result of high blood sugar.
Understanding this working model of heart disease has highlighted a wildly effective way to prevent the pandemic killer: Control blood sugar. Aside from cinnamon, proper sunshine and green tea, other methods of controlling blood sugar have been discovered:
1. Interval training can lower blood sugar by up to 40%. To put it into perspective, the commonly prescribed Metformin does so by a paltry 19% while putting users at risk of obesity, if they can tolerate the constant vomiting and diarrhea!
2. Nutritional supplementation with magnesium (400 mg/day) was found to improve high blood sugar among elderly individuals. Research shows that a magnesium deficiency inhibits insulin from escorting glucose out of the bloodstream into muscles. The end result is insulin resistance and an increased risk of heart attack. Magnesium aspartate has shown to be the best absorbed form of magnesium.
3. Tannic acid from banaba mimics the actions of insulin by eliciting glucose transport from the blood stream into muscle. The safe and effective blood-sugar lowering effect of tannic acid has caught the attention of Big Pharma. Many drug companies are working rigorously to create a synthetic knock-off.
4. Increasing fiber intake with a tablespoon of psyllium husk prevents dangerous spikes in blood sugar after a meal.
Controlling blood sugar has become the absolute hottest area of research. Not only does it suggest a single way of ameliorating heart disease, but also a host of other diseases caused by high blood sugar. These include but are not limited to diabetes, cancer and even Alzheimer’s! Instead of dosing patients up with a handful of drugs to treat a handful of diseases, controlling blood sugar naturally is one remedy for all three!
Note: Ready to control your blood sugar, prevent heart attack and look great? Want abundant energy too? See The AM PM Fat Loss Discovery at: http://www.health-fx.net
References available by request.
About the Author
Shane holds a Master’s degree in organic chemistry and has first-hand industry experience with drug research, design and synthesis. With his keen ability to sift through scientific literature and weed out fact from fiction, Shane has empowered thousands to assert their health freedom by saying “no” to prescription drugs. Learn more about his books Health Myths Exposed and The Hidden Truth about Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs. Get his FREE Life-Saving Health Briefs at www.healthmyths.net.
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SplendaTM: McNeil Nutritionals
If there were a contest for the best example of total disregard for human life the victor would be McNeil Nutritionals – makers of SplendaTM. Manufacturers of VioxxTM and LipitorTM would tie for a very distant second.
McNeil Nutritionals is the undisputed drug-pushing champion for disguising their drug SplendaTM as a sweetener. Regardless of its drug qualities and potential for side-effects, McNeil is dead set on putting it on every kitchen table in America. Apparently, VioxxTM and LipitorTM makers can’t stoop so low as to deceptively masquerade their drug as a candy of sort. There is no question that their products are drugs and by definition come with negative side-effects. Rather than sell directly to the consumer, these losers have to go through the painful process of using doctors to prescribe their dangerous goods
A keen student in corporate drug dealing, McNeil learned from aspartame and saccharine pushers that if a drug tastes sweet then let the masses eat it in their cake. First though, you have to create a facade of natural health. They did this using a cute trade name that kind of sounds like splendid and packaged it in pretty colors. Hypnotized, the masses were duped instantly. As unquestionably as a dog humps your leg, millions of diabetics (and non-diabetics) blindly eat sucralose under the trade name SplendaTM in place of real sugar (sucrose)
SplendaTM was strategically released on April fools day in 1998. This day is reserved worldwide for hoaxes and practical jokes on friends and family, the aim of which is to embarrass the gullible. McNeil certainly succeeded
The splendid SplendaTM hoax is costing gullible Americans $187 million annually. (1) While many people “wonder” about the safety of SplendaTM they rarely question it. Despite its’ many “unknowns” and inherent dangers, SplendaTM demand has grown faster than its supply. No longer do I have to question my faith in fellow Man. He is not a total idiot, just a gullible one. McNeil jokesters are laughing all the way to the bank.
Splenda is not as harmless as McNeil wants you to believe. A mixture of sucralose, maltodextrine and dextrose (a detrimental simple sugar), each of the not-so-splendid SplendaTM ingredients has downfalls. Aside from the fact that it really isn’t “sugar and calorie free,” here is one big reason to avoid the deceitful mix…Think April fools day:
SplendaTM contains a potential poison
SplendaTM contains the drug sucralose. This chemical is 600 times sweeter than sugar. To make sucralose, chlorine is used. Chlorine has a split personality. It can be harmless or it can be life threatening.
In combo with sodium, chlorine forms a harmless “ionic bond” to yield table salt. Sucralose makers often highlight this worthless fact to defend its safety. Apparently, they missed the second day of Chemistry 101 – the day they teach “covalent” bonds
When used with carbon, the chlorine atom in sucralose forms a “covalent” bond. The end result is the historically deadly “organochlorine” or simply: a Really-Nasty Form of Chlorine (RNFOC)
Unlike ionic bonds, covalently bound chlorines are a big no-no for the human body. They yield insecticides, pesticides, and herbicides – not something you want in the lunch box of your precious child. It’s therefore no surprise that the originators of sucralose, chemists Hough and Phadnis, were attempting to design new insecticides when they discovered it! It wasn’t until the young Phadnis accidentally tasted his new “insecticide” that he learned it was sweet. And because sugars are more profitable than insecticides, the whole insecticide idea got canned and a new sweetener called Splenda got packaged.
To hide its’ origin, SplendaTM pushers assert that sucralose is “made from sugar so it tastes like sugar.” Sucralose is as close to sugar as WindexTM is to ocean water.
The RNFOC poses a real and present danger to all SplendaTM users. It is risky because the RNFOC confers a molecule with a set of super powers that wreak havoc on the human body. For example, Agent Orange, used in the U.S Army’s herbicidal warfare program, is a RNFOC. Exposure can lead to Hodgkin’s lymphoma and non-Hodgkins lymphoma as well as diabetes and various forms of cancer! Other shocking examples are the war gas phosgene, chlordane and lindane. (2) The RNFOC is lethal because it allows poisons to be fat soluble while rendering the natural defense mechanisms of the body helpless.
A poison that is fat soluble is akin to a bomb exploding internally. It invades every nook and cranny of the body. Cell walls and DNA – the genetic map of human life – become nothing more than potential casualties of war when exposed. Sucralose is only 25% water soluble. (3) Which means a vast majority of it may explode internally. In general, this results in weakened immune function , irregular heart beat, agitation, shortness of breath, skin rashes, headaches, liver and kidney damage, birth defects, cancer, cancer and more cancer – for generations! (1)
McNeil asserts that their studies prove it to be safe for everyone, even children. That’s little assurance. Learning from the VioxxTM debacle (and many others highlighted in my book Health Myths Exposed) which killed tens of thousands, we know that studies can be bought and results fabricated.
Some things are worth dying for. Splenda is not one of them. What people think of as a food is a drug or slow poison – little distinction there. It wouldn’t be wise to bet your health on it. If safe, sucralose would be the first molecule in human history that contained a RNFOC fit for human consumption. This fact alone makes sucralose questionable for use as a sweetener, if not instantly detrimental to our health. Only time will tell. Until then, Ill stick to the safe and naturally occurring stevia plant to satisfy my occasional sweet tooth in 2007.
Be forewarned though, as long as drugs can be legally disguised as sweeteners, watch out for drugs being disguised as vitamins…Oh wait, they are already doing that – think Lipitor.
About the Author
Shane Ellison holds a master’s degree in organic chemistry and has first-hand experience in drug design. After abandoning his career as a medical chemist, he dedicated himself to stopping prescription-drug hype. He is an internationally recognized authority on therapeutic nutrition and author of Health Myths Exposed, The Hidden Truth about Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs and The AM-PM Fat Loss Discovery. His books and FREE Life Saving Health Briefs can be found at www.healthmyths.net.
References:
1. Joseph Mercola, Kendra Pearsall. Sweet Deception. Nelson Books. ISBN: 0785221794. Copyright 2006.
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_orange
3. Caroline W. Sham. Splenda – A Safe and Sweet Alternative to Sugar. Nutrition Bytes. 2005.
Vol. 10. Issue 2. Article 5.
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