OPINION:
In Canada, unlike the U.S., people’s health comes second to maximizing pharmaceutical industry profits (“Saving lives comes first for drug companies,” Web, Dec. 26).
A late-2019 Angus Reid study found that over the previous year, due to medication unaffordability, almost a quarter of Canadians decided against filling a prescription or having one renewed. Not only is medication here less affordable, but other research has revealed that many low-income outpatients who cannot afford to fill their prescriptions end up back in the hospital system as a result, therefore costing provincial and federal government health ministries far more than the initial medication. Ergo, in order for the industry to continue raking in huge profits, Canadians and their health both must lose out big time.
Recouping research-and-development costs is typically cited by the powerful industry to justify its exorbitant prices and stiff resistance to proposed universal- medication-coverage public plans. Yet a study conducted by the British Medical Journal found that for every $19 the pharmaceutical industry spent on promoting and marketing new drugs, it put only $1 into its R&D.
FRANK STERLE JR.
White Rock, British Columbia
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