The cost of health care has never seen a dip. It just gets more expensive and the results are not always what we want them to be. But we keep paying the price because for some people, there is no other choice. When a new drug comes out and it is expected to treat or cure an illness or infection, we run to it and hope there is enough money we can scramble up in time. About 50 million Americans do not even have health insurance and with a burden like that, comes pricier medication. .
Since 1945, the pharmaceutical industry moved from little new drug growth to researching the environment from thousands of chemical compounds for a specific disease. Roughly 20% of new drugs are biotechnology driven and the sales were $52.7 billion in 2005. The average cost for making new drugs, because of research and development, has increased drastically. The main reason why there is such a large increase is because of the increasing focus on chronic rather than acute illnesses as a population. .
In Africa, the HIV virus has turned into an epidemic. For the majority of the African people, the high cost of drugs is a difficult hurdle. Pharmaceutical companies had the prices based on Western standards, which was $1,000 USD a month. At that time the virus was at its peak in Sub Saharan Africa and half the population was living on less than $31 USD a month. The drug was so far out of reach, it seems impossible to many. .
Although it is nearly impossible for poor countries to get a lifesaving prescription drug, pharmaceutical companies go on and advertise their new drug. A common place for advertisement are: magazines, television, radio, and the internet. In the beginning there were no regulations to the so called patent medicines that were advertised and were normally bought by uneducated consumers with little to no access to a doctor. Today those advertisements are regulated heavily because of the Food and Drug Administration Act of 2007.
