Pharmaceutical Industry's "free speech" trumps public safety.

We know that street drug pushers are dangerous to society...but we need to look out for the the Professional Drug Dealers as well--Pharmaceutical Companies that peddle poison to patients and get away with it.

Don't look at the Senate or the House to keep you safe, they're getting lobbied by the pharmaceutical corporation big time--and just passed an FDA reauthorization bill that ignores public safety and instead catering to the marketing interests of drug manufacturers.

Drug manufacturers now spend more money on Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) advertising than they do marketing to physicians. People may laugh at the "erections lasting more than 4 hours" warnings and the long lists of side effects included on these ads, but while they're laughing, they're also ignoring. DTC advertising sells more drugs. Patients ask their doctors for the purple pill or the blue pill, and doctors sign 'em up.

Since drugs entering the market have been tested only on a small number of people in clinical trials (using extremely limited demographics and making wild generalizations of efficacy and safety) the American TV Viewing public becomes the real guinea pigs.

Sure, the FDA may pull a drug off the market after thousands of people are adversely affected by it (fen-phen and Vioxx immediately come to mind) but is that good enough?

What about informed consent? People who believe the DTC propaganda don't consider themselves part of a "clinical trial" but they are. Where are the whistleblowers?

Reformers asked Congress to enact a three-year bar on ads for new prescription drugs, limiting the numbers of people put at risk. Unfortunately, Congress sided with lobbyists, taking cover behind the drug-maker's claimed free speech rights to justify their inaction.
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