[Pharmwaste] RE: Record 4.02 Billion Prescriptions in US in 2011

[Gilliam, Allen]

Wonder where the author of the below editorial got the idea that, “Importantly, increases in both sales and prescriptions dispensed are positive signs for a struggling pharmaceutical industry.”?  Who’s struggling???  The article’s Table 4 indicates the Top Pharmaceutical Companies had drug sales over 167 billion dollars in 2011.
Wonder how much of that is going to corporate officials/shareholders vs R&D?
And here we are struggling to figure out which drop boxes to buy with whose money…
“It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world” out there Jimmy Durante, Sid Caesar and cast!
Allen g

From: Matthew C. Mireles [mailto:mirelesmc at earthlink.net]
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2012 12:35 PM
To: Gilliam, Allen; Tenace,Laurie; pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us
Cc: Elizabeth Smith; Elizabeth A. Smith PhD
Subject: Re: [Pharmwaste] RE: Record 4.02 Billion Prescriptions in US in 2011

Allen, it's quite alarming, and we're not even including prescription drugs (antibiotics, steroids, etc.) given to livestock in our agricultural industry.  This stat supports the figure that Americans consume about 50% of world's production of pharmaceuticals annually (approx $300 billion; global production is about $600 billion). We discussed this at your Region 6 meeting.  Of course, counterfeit drugs and illicits are on the rise too.  Police departments are reporting more robbery at pharmacies, not for cash but for narcotics.

Matthew Mireles
-----Original Message-----
From: "Gilliam, Allen"
Sent: Sep 17, 2012 8:01 AM
To: "Tenace, Laurie" , "pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us<mailto:pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us>"
Subject: [Pharmwaste] RE: Record 4.02 Billion Prescriptions in US in 2011
If anyone, I’d bet Dr. Mireles is graphing this trend.  I’m thinking of one of his presentations, where I think he mentioned the trend is now exponential.  I’d like to see a graph of prescriptions written over the last ten, maybe twenty yrs if the data was being tracked that long ago.
Allen Gilliam
ADEQ State Pretreatment Coordinator
From: pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us<mailto:pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us> [mailto:pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us]<mailto:[mailto:pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us]> On Behalf Of Tenace, Laurie
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2012 2:14 PM
To: pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us<mailto:pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us>
Subject: [Pharmwaste] Record 4.02 Billion Prescriptions in US in 2011
Pardon any cross posting. I thought this data might be interesting to Pharmwaste members.
Laurie

Record 4.02 billion prescriptions in United States in 2011

People in the United States took more prescription drugs than ever last year, with the number of prescriptions increasing from 3.99 billion (with a cost of $308.6 billion) in 2010 to 4.02 billion (with a cost of $319.9 billion) in 2011. Those numbers and others appear in an annual profile of top prescription medicines published in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience.

Journal Editor-in-Chief Craig W. Lindsley analyzed data on 2011 drugs with a focus on medications for central nervous system (CNS) disorders. So-called antipsychotic medicines - including those used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette syndrome and some forms of depression - ranked as the fifth most-prescribed class of drugs by sales. Antidepressants, for conditions that include depression and anxiety, ranked No. 7.
For more details see, http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=223&content_id=CNBP_030644&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=a606ceb0-866f-4635-96f3-def3a5bebd3e

Beth Eckl
Director, Environmental Purchasing Program

Tel 866.598.2240
beckl at practicegreenhealth.org<mailto:beckl at practicegreenhealth.org>
www.practicegreenhealth.org<http://www.practicegreenhealth.org>
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