BIG PHARMA'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET
BY
KATHLEEN DEOUL
(VIII of XII)

Dr. Motheral put it in perspective "Given that patients pay portions of premiums and copays, promoting cost-effective treatment decisions ultimately controls not only payers costs buy also patients' out-of-pocket expenditures."

It's not just the St. Louis researchers, however, who are blowing the lid off Big Pharma's efficacy scam. Take for example high blood pressure drugs.

Last year, Big Pharma got a windfall when the National Institutes of Health moved the goalposts on high blood pressure. It used to be that blood pressure of 130/85 was considered normal. But late in 2002, the Institute of Medicine decided that was no longer the case and created a new category "prehypertensive," for people with blood pressures between 120/80 and 139/89. All of a sudden Big Pharma got tens of millions of customers for its expensive high blood pressure drugs!

What they didn't know was that at that very moment, someone was about to pull the rug out from under them.