The U.S. government has decided to enter the pharmaceutical business. Apparently, the drug companies aren't coming out with new "breakthrough" drugs quickly enough, and now the U.S. government plans to spend taxpayer dollars conducting research on drugs which will be turned over to Big Pharma. Those drug companies, in turn, will sell them for a profit. It's yet another clear case where the government is taking over the health care (sick care) industry and funneling profits into the hands of pharmaceutical corporations.

The new government drug research center will operate under the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and be called the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, says he hopes Congress will increase funding of the center to at least $1 billion annually.

The NIH, of course, is a revolving door for Big Pharma executives. Dr William Potter, for example, was formerly a researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health, after which he became the vice president of translational neuroscience at Merck. And the government money that goes into these so-called drug "discoveries" will only end up boosting the profits of drug companies rather than fundamentally improving the health of the American people. (More drugs does not equal better health. If anything it's an inverse correlation: More drugs = more degenerative disease!)

The top twenty pharmaceutical companies and their two trade groups, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and Biotechnology Industry Organization, lobbied on at least 1,600 pieces of legislation between 1998 and 2004. According to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, pharmaceutical companies spent $900 million on lobbying between 1998 and 2005, more than any other industry. During the same period, they donated $89.9 million to federal candidates and political parties, giving approximately three times as much to Republicans as to Democrats.[1] According to the Center for Public Integrity, from January 2005 through June 2006 alone, the pharmaceutical industry spent approximately $182 million on Federal lobbying.[2] The industry has 1,274 registered lobbyists in Washington D.C. [3]

Originally posted by RealSpoke
reply to post by neo96

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I could go on and on about both of them being corrupt. They are both awful. It's sad that you're trying to defend one corrupt admin for another.

Originally posted by burntheships
reply to post by stanguilles7

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Seems like your suggesting that news media outlets should be controlled,
and your for limiting free speech.

Take it up with Newsmax, and tell them your there make sure the headlines
all read the same as the New York Times.....is your job to limit free speech?

edit on 10-6-2012 by burntheships because: (no reason given)

Originally posted by stanguilles7
Again, it seems rather disingenuous for your source to claim the NY Times said "Obama Colluded with Drug Companies" when the actual Times headline was:

Obama Was Pushed by Drug Industry, E-Mails Suggest

and pointed out several times that Obama's actions were more of a 'giving in to' than a 'colluding'

I mean, why not just post the actual NYTImes article?

reply to post by burntheships

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