Consider this quote: “If you have a long, drawn-out, incurable but treatable disease, it’s unfortunate for you but great for pharmaceutical companies. While you’re suffering indefinitely, you’re also buying expensive pharmaceutical drugs to make the disease “manageable.”

So writes ‘Dani Veracity,’ if that’s a real name, in “Pharmaceutical fraud: How Big Pharma’s marketing and profits come before consumer safety and wellness” (http://www.newstarget.com/020345.html).
She writes that: “Since, according to these and other sources, drug companies predominantly fund medical research, scientists have almost no choice but to mainly focus their time and effort on the most profitable, but not necessarily the most effective, treatments. Though an herb, which by its very nature cannot be patented, may treat and possibly even cure a disease, drug companies may nevertheless not fund research or marketing for it, leaving the general public largely ignorant of the herb’s benefits. Mainstream medicine largely dismisses vitamins and minerals in the same manner as herbs.”
In support of her argument she cites some classics such as:
Prescription Alternatives by Earl Mindell RPh PhD and Virginia Hopkins MA
Health Care Meltdown by Robert H Lebow MD, page 229
Disease Prevention And Treatment by Life Extension Foundation
Deep Healing by Emmette Miller MD
Overdosed America by John Abramson MD
Overdose by Jay S Cohen
The Rhodiola Revolution by Richard P Brown MD and Patricia L Gerbarg MD
Alternative Medicine by Burton Goldberg
Scientific Validation of Herbal Medicine by Daniel B Mowrey PhD
Choices In Healing by Michael Lerner
Cancer Therapy by Ralph W Moss PhD
Disease Prevention And Treatment by Life Extension Foundation,
Encyclopedia Of Natural Medicine by Michael T Murray MD Joseph L Pizzorno ND
Healing Miracles of Coconut Oil by Bruce Fife ND, page 85
By their very nature, prescription drugs are the perfect product for a monopoly. Drugs are patented and available from only one manufacturer, and prices can be increased at the discretion of the company with few consumer complaints. How many people who are ill question the cost of drugs prescribed by their doctor? During the 1980s, inflation rose 58 percent and pharmaceutical companies managed to triple their prices. In 1990 the drug industry was the most profitable industry in America, with 13.6 percent annual profits, more than triple the average Fortune 500 company. The 1991 median profit of a Fortune pharmaceutical company was $592 million. Because the U.S. is the only major industrialized nation that does not regulate the prices or profits of drug companies, prescription drugs generally cost 25 to 40 percent more than in other countries. For three out of four elderly Americans, prescription drugs are their biggest expense.
Innocent Casualties by Elaine Feuer, page 73
Natural Alternatives To Drugs by Michael T Murray ND
Ephedra Fact And Fiction by Mike Fillon, page 144