• Prescription drugs Prescription drugs From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – December 6, 2004 Like a nosy dinner guest, the federal government periodically snoops into the nation’s collective medicine cabinet and reports what it finds. The latest report, released last
• Prescription drugs
Prescription drugs
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – December 6, 2004
Like a nosy dinner guest, the federal government periodically snoops into the nation’s collective medicine cabinet and reports what it finds.
The latest report, released last week, reveals that while Americans may not live as long as people in Japan, Italy or Canada, we are the most medicated nation on Earth. More than 40 percent of Americans take at least one prescription drug. About one in six of us takes three or more medicines.
The number of prescriptions filled in this country jumped by about 70 percent over the past decade, while the nation’s population grew by just 13 percent. The number of people taking antidepressants tripled during that time; use of cholesterol-lowering medications also increased significantly.
These are not necessarily bad things. Researchers have long believed that serious depression is under-diagnosed and under-treated in the United States. Experts say that millions more Americans could benefit from cholesterol medication.
But given the large number of prescriptions filled, it probably comes as no surprise that drug spending has grown at a dizzying pace. It rose 114 percent between 1997 and 2002, to more than $162 billion.
That represents only about 11 percent of the nation’s total medical bills. But it has been the fastest growing part of health spending in recent years. That has raised cries of alarm over what usually is described as runaway drug prices.
Actually, higher prices for existing drugs account for only about 25 percent of increased spending, according to a study conducted for the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. Greater use of drugs accounted for 42 percent of increased spending, the study found. The remaining 34 percent was due to use of newer, more expensive brand name drugs.
That raises important questions about the role of advertising in driving demand. Since 1996, when the Food and Drug Administration relaxed advertising rules, pharmaceutical company spending on consumer ads has increased 28 percent, to $2.7 billion a year. Those ads helped drive sales of popular drugs, including the recently withdrawn arthritis drug Vioxx. An analysis released last year of direct-to-consumer advertising concluded that for every extra dollar the industry spent on such ads, drug sales increased by $4.20.
The federal study also highlighted a rapid rise in prescriptions for children ages 5 to 17, especially drugs for attention deficit disorder and depression. The use of antidepressants in children is troubling especially in light of revelations that pharmaceutical company studies found several drugs were no more effective in young people than sugar pills.
As was the case with Vioxx, the true cost of prescribing those drugs to young people cannot be measured in dollars alone. The question that most needs answering is whether our national infatuation with medication has brought us more benefits than costs.
That will have to wait for another study, another day.
