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With prescription drug prices rising at more than twice the rate of inflation, the drug industry is being subjected to more scrutiny than ever before. The results have been more than troubling. As with all corruption though, it exists because we the people allow it to exist.

From 1997 to 2001, U.S. drug sales rose 20 percent each year. Though that trend has slowed recently due to a faltering economy, prescription drug sales have continued their annual rise. In fact, one out of every six dollars spent in the U.S., is spent on prescription drugs.

The most prescribed is the cholesterol drug Lipitor with sales of $12 billion in 2007, that drug has been one of the most heavily advertised drugs in the years since advertising for prescription drugs became legal. Lipitor is manufactured by Pfizer, which for 2006 reported a net profit of $12.9 billion.

The watchdog group known as Fierce Pharma recently released the 2007 salaries (includes base salary, bonuses, other compensation)for the CEOs of the to drug makers. That list follows:

1) Miles White - Abbot ($33.4M)

2) Fred Hassan - Schering-Plough ($30.1M)

3) Bill Weldon - Johnson & Johnson (25.1M)

4) Bob Essner - Wyeth ($24.1M)

5) Robert Parkinson - Baxter ($17.6M)

6) Daniel Vasella - Novartis ($15.5M)

7) Richard Clark - Merck ($14.5M)

8) Frank Baldino - Cephalon ($13.5M)

9) Sidney Taurel - Eli Lilly ($13M)

10) Jeff Kindler - Pfizer ($12.6M)

11) Jim Cornelius - Bristol-Meyers Squibb ($11.3M)

12) Franz Humer - Roche ($11.1M)

13) Robert Coury - Mylan ($8.5M)

14) Jen-Pierre Garnier - GlaxoSmithKline ($6M)

15) Werner Wenning - Bayer ($4.77M)

16) David Brennan - AstraZeneca ($4.3M)

17) Gerard Le Fur - Sanofi-Aventis ($3.27M)

The drug industry attempts to justify their obscene profits by claiming to spend most of the money on research and development. However, that is simply a lie. A few years ago, the health care advocacy organization Families USA has recently reported that the drug industry on average, spends at least twice as much on marketing as they do on R & D.

Families USA discovered that in 2000, Merck & Co. spent 15 percent of their total profits on marketing, while only devoting six percent to the development of new drugs. The same study showed that Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. spent a whopping 30 percent of their annual revenue in 2000 on marketing, and only spent 11 percent on R & D. The spending ratio which largely favors advertising over developing new drugs seen in those two companies, is typical of the entire industry

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