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Big Bucks, Big Pharma and a clip from the extra feature, Drug Costs and PR

By Bill Larson | August 13, 2006 |

Medical care and high drug prices are a serious issues, and ones that the public needs to be aware of. No one should have to choose between life or death for a loved one, because they can not afford to pay for life saving medical treatment. We need to ask our selves as a society, how much profit is too much profit.

We have already limited the ability of businesses involved in money lending to charge whatever the market will bear for their services, we need to consider enacting similar legal measures in other vital areas.

Newly released by the Media Education Foundation, “Big Bucks, Big Pharma” pulls back the curtain on the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry to expose the insidious ways that illness is used, manipulated, and in some instances created, for capital gain.

Focusing on the industry’s marketing practices, media scholars and health professionals help viewers understand the ways in which direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising glamorizes and normalizes the use of prescription medication, and works in tandem with promotion to doctors.

Combined, these industry practices shape how both patients and doctors understand and relate to disease and treatment. Ultimately, Big Bucks, Big Pharma challenges us to ask important questions about the consequences of relying on a for-profit industry for our health and well-being.

Featuring interviews with Dr. Marcia Angell (Dept. of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Former Editor New England Journal of Medicine), Dr. Bob Goodman (Columbia University Medical Center; Founder, No Free Lunch), Gene Carbona (Former Pharmaceutical Industry Insider and Current Executive Director of Sales, The Medical Letter), Katharine Greider (Journalist; Author, The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers,), Dr. Elizabeth Preston (Dept. of Communication, Westfield State College), and Dr. Larry Sasich (Public Citizen Health Research Group).

Producer/Editor: Ronit Ridberg Check out: http://www.mediaed.org/

A special extra to the film “Big Bucks, Big Pharma,” this compilation shows how drug companies thwart attempts to rein in skyrocketing prescription drug costs through false claims that regulation will hinder the research and development of essential new drugs. These PR campaigns by the pharmaceutical industry aim to frighten the public, and divert us from realizing that high drug prices are more about feeding multi-billion dollar industry profits, and supporting massive advertising and lobbying efforts, than they are about securing the invention of effective new drugs.

Producer/Editor: Ronit Ridberg Check out: http://www.bigbucksbigpharma.org/

*All Text used in article except the first two paragraphs taken in full from the google video pages for these clips.

About Bill Larson

Bill Larson is the Creator and Publisher of Clarksville Online, and works as a network administrator for Compu-Net Enterprises. He is politically and socially active in the community. Bill is a member of the Friends of Dunbar Cave, and an associate of the Clarksville Free Thinkers for Peace and Civil Liberties. You can reach him via telephone at 931-920-0043 or via the email address below.

Email: clarksville@clarksvilleonline.com

Sections: Arts and Leisure, Issues
Topics: Documentary films, Drug Prices, Health Care

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