The pharmaceutical industry is massive with over $300 billion spend each year on prescription drugs. Even in the midst of a historic recession, the industry thrives with record profits. In short, the pharmaceutical industry is doing quite well. And there is strong pressure to maintain and improve upon these revenues.
This pressure has led to some rather atrocious practices by the industry. The most obvious and harmful practice is concealing dangerous side effects of drugs keeping them on the market even when they are known to cause horrible and sometimes fatal injuries. This includes keeping them on the market in the United States even when they have already been banned in other countries.
To accomplish these staggering profits, they spend more than twice the amount on advertising than they do on research and development. And these very aggressive promotional campaigns continue even in the face of obvious health hazards associated with the products. In fact, these hazards are actively concealed to the point that protesting employees are terminated from the companies.
It does not stop there however. To further their profit at all costs business model, the industry also enlists doctors upon whom we place our most sacred trust with our own health and the health of our families. Naturally, patients will trust their doctors. In fact, society as a whole places enormous trust and confidence in the medical profession. Sadly, this trust is not always well placed particularly when it comes to pharmaceuticals.
The pharmaceutical industry cynically manipulates this trust by paying bribes to doctors so that the doctor will prescribe the their medications. These bribes include enticements for off-label marketing meaning drugs are being prescribed for purposes other than those for which they have been approved or intended. It also includes flat invention of formerly non-existent ailments. A good case in point is the blanket classification of children as ADHD. The practices also include diagnosis and treatment for other contrived mental health problems which in the past were simply a part of life turning the common blues into atypical depression and so on. Then one need not look far for the often deadly consequences of over-prescription of pain-killers for minor ailments.
At the end of each of these unnecessary and often contra-indicated prescriptions is a pharmaceutical company whose sole objective sometimes appears to be higher profits. And no expense will be spared to achieve these profits with doctors commonly deriving greater income from pharmaceutical company bribes than from their medical practice. Then of course, there is the political lobbying which is far too complex to address here.
Suffice it to say, there are many dangerous drugs out on the market. Chances are if you are reading this, you or a loved one has suffered from one such drug. More likely than not, you were unaware of the dangers trusting the drugs were safe and prescribed for their intended purpose. More to the point, in taking the drugs, you likely placed your confidence in your doctor and maybe even in the promotional material of the drug company.
If you have been seriously harmed by dangerous drugs, off-label marketing, negligent or reckless prescription of dangerous drugs or off-label prescriptions by your doctor, you may have both a claim against the pharmaceutical company and a medical malpractice claim against your doctor.
These types of claims are difficult and time-consuming. There are strict statutes of limitations, and in cases against governmentally employed doctors, time limits can run in as little as 90 days from the date of the injury. To protect your rights, it is important that you contact an attorney as soon as you become aware of your injuries.