Summary

Prescription drugs help people manage such medical conditions as severe depression, high blood pressure, asthma, arthritis, and diabetes. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, adults spend nearly $73 billion per year on prescription drugs. Pharmaceutical companies have increased demand for their products by advertising to patients and marketing to the physicians who prescribe drugs—practices that critics condemn. The more prescription drugs a person takes, the more likely the drugs will interact in ways that are harmful. Errors in prescribing are another hazard, and even legitimate prescription drugs have recently been subject to recalls due to contamination.

Are prescription drugs getting to the people who need them most? Are they being overprescribed and overused? Are prices too high? Prescription Drugs introduces readers to the controversies associated with popular prescription drugs and shows how Americans have attempted to balance the goals of access and safety.

Coverage includes:

• The Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), which prohibited interstate commerce in adulterated drugs
• The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (1970), which classified drugs based on their potential for abuse and set criminal punishments for five different schedules of drugs
• Upjohn v. Finch (1970), in which the federal court ruled that commercial success alone does not constitute substantial evidence of drug safety and efficacy
• The Prescription Drug Marketing Act (1987), which allowed direct-to-consumer advertising
• The Prescription Drug User Fee Act (1992), which required the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry to pay user fees to help cover the FDA costs of drug reviews
• Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America v. Walsh (2003), in which the Supreme Court affirmed that states have the right to compel drug manufacturers to subsidize price discounts for prescription drugs.

Specifications

Index. Appendixes. Bibliography. Glossary. Chronology.

About the Author(s)

Fred C. Pampel holds a B.A., an M.A., and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is currently a professor of sociology and a research associate of the Institute of Behavior Science at the University of Colorado in Boulder. His research has focused on such topics as population aging, inequality, health, and social policy. Pampel has published 14 books for undergraduate and scholarly audiences and more than 60 articles in the nation's top scholarly presses and social science journals. He is the author of Racial Profiling, Threats to Food Safety, Drugs and Sports, Disaster Response, Rights of the Elderly, and Tobacco Industry and Smoking, Revised Edition, all in Facts On File's Library in a Book series.