America takes a lot of prescription drugs with more than 70% of Americans taking at least 1 prescription drug. A staggering 4 Billion prescriptions were written in 2011!
We are bombarded with drug advertisements on television BUT it is scary to think that only about 20% of their marketing budgets are spent on consumer marketing and 80% on marketing directly to doctors.
According to the BBC, 9 out of 10 Big Pharma companies do in fact spend more on marketing than on R&D.
The point is, these pharmaceutical companies have a big a influence on doctors and they do not always public’s best interests at heat.