The Marginal Cost of Medicine

In defense of the Caplan-Hanson theory that the margin of wasted medical expenses is large.

The Times found that:

• Pharmaceutical firms have commandeered the process by which diseases are defined. Many decision makers at the World Health Organization, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and some of America's most prestigious medical societies take money from the drug companies and then promote the industry's agenda.

• Some diseases have been radically redefined without a strong basis in medical evidence.

• The drug industry has bolstered its position by marketing directly to the health-conscious consumer, leading younger and healthier people to consider themselves at risk and to start taking medications.

Every time the boundary of a disease is expanded — the hypertension threshold is lowered by 10 blood-pressure points, the guideline for obesity is lowered by 5 pounds — the market for drugs expands by millions of consumers and billions of dollars.

The result? Skyrocketing sales of prescription drugs. Soaring health-care costs. Escalating patient anxiety. Worst of all, millions of people taking drugs that may carry a greater risk than the underlying condition. The treatment, in fact, may make them sick or even kill them.

And further down:

Treatment guidelines established by international and national health organizations instruct physicians on diagnosis and treatment of disease and are meant to be scientifically pristine. But many of those groups lack any process for preventing or disclosing conflicts of interest.

The Times found that for a broad spectrum of diseases, the experts writing the treatment guidelines had drug-company ties ranging from research contracts to consultancies to stock ownership.

What!? Rent seeking in the medical profession?

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Comments

[Susan R]

I think the price of medication is one of the things contributing to the health care crisis in every country.

[Susan R]

I think the price of medication is one of the things contributing to the health care crisis in every country.