Big Pharma: The Illusion of "Innovation"

An analysis of newly-approved drugs in France from 2002 - 2011 found that most drugs were copies of old ones. And of 667 new drugs approved by the FDA from 2000-2008, 75% were essentially copies of old ones.

"And one of the reasons for that is, for basic science research, the drug companies actually end up spending about 19 to 20 times more on marketing than they do on research and development and basic science."

And if you look at the therapeutic value of all these drugs, double the amount of drugs that were found to be beneficial were actually proven to be more harmful than good.

"What's the overall net effect of the pharmaceutical industry? Certainly in the last few decades, it's very clear, it's been negative ... And who's paying for it? We are paying for this! The taxpayer is paying for this. You've got big corporations making all this money — they also don't pay their taxes. So it's almost like we've got a system which steals from the poor and is giving to the rich, and you wonder why society is disintegrating."