Who’s to blame for rising drug costs?
Client: Teamsters Local 705
This local’s publication has a strong “Teamster-style” voice that is in-your-face while also never talking down to its members. It includes updates on bargaining and organizing spliced with national economics and politics to illustrate the connection between bargaining power and the big picture.
Sample: Who’s to blame for rising drug costs?
———
Television’s “ad”-verse effects
The federal government let the genie out of the bottle 10 years ago when it allowed drug manufacturers to sell medicine the way soft drink makers hawk Mountain Dew.
In fact, Fortune 500 drug companies spent nearly three times (up to $30 million) the amount of their revenues on advertising than they did on research in 2000. Drug king Schering-Plough spent a staggering $136 million advertising the sinus drug Claritin in 1998, more than Coca-Cola spent on Coke or Anheuser-Busch spent on Budweiser.
Nice job if you can get it
Meanwhile, the former CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb made $74.9 million in 2001. The chairman of Wyeth made $40.5 million. The former chairman of Pfizer made $28.3 million. The current chairman of Pfizer made $23.8 million. The vice chairman made $15.9 million. That doesn’t even include those stock options Wall Street is always talking about. The five executives with the highest stock options had another $332 million coming to them in 2001.
Politicians: bought and paid for
Drug companies have spread mucho dollars around to protect their gravy train, too, dumping more than $330 million into lobbying the federal government since 1991. In the last election cycle, they handed over nearly $22 million in political contributions — with $17 million going to Republicans.
They play but they don’t pay
But pharmaceutical companies didn’t let advertising or executive salairies cut into their profits. Drug manufacturing is the most profitable industry in the country, raking in 18.6 percent profits, and outstripping the traditional money grabbers — commercial banks — which come in a distant second. They pass on their expenses to consumers of course. In the last three months of 2002, Pfizer Inc., makers of Lipitor and Neurontin, posted a 46 percent profit gain over the same three months of 2000. Imagine getting a 46 percent raise — after taxes — in just two years!