Pharmaceutical Companies

     Pharmaceutical companies are known as Big Pharma because they are now the largest and most profitable industry on the planet. Phizer, Astra Zeneca. Glaxosmithkline, and Merck. From your local druggist of the turn of the twentieth century, who mixed chemicals, powders, herbs, and natural juices, to make their pills and powders, we now have Pfizer, Wyeth, Merck, Astra Zeneca, Novartis, ad nauseum. That manufacture and sell, capsules, pills, liquids, caplets, softgels, and tablets. Why do we have so many huge multi billion dollar corporations researching and developing medications to help people with disease and sickness? Because of the profits involved. There is much more profit in Nexium to treat acid reflux than in Tums to treat heartburn. If you have itchy legs, you now have restless leg syndrome and need Restasis, no Gold Bond  powder. Big Pharma has taken Americans’ reliance on doctors to repair and improve what they have neglected and damaged, and made billions of dollars of profit on it. Does Pfizer have any medication for prevention? Does Astra Zeneca, makers of Nexium, the purple pill, have some advice about avoiding hot, overly spiced foods? No, because there’s no money in advice. But there is in medications.  Big Pharma is so big and so powerful, they can ignore the Federal government’s pleas for lower medication prices.