Okay, so I said it was illegal that pharmaceutical companies fund their own clinical trials. What I meant was that it is illegal for the pharmaceutical companies to "pay" the physicians and people involved in the trials above and beyond a small unrestricted educational grant. This grant covers the cost of the medication, the cost to pay the patients involved in the trial, and a small reimbursement to the physicians running the clinical trial. Many times special interest groups that represent diseases will put in a lot of funds into the trials in hopes of speeding up a disease curing medication. These physicians do not run the clinical trials for the cash, as they don't pay much. So why do they do it then? They do it for the reputation, they gain a reputation as being an honest medical thoughtleader throughout the worldwide medical commmunity. Also, the patients do not know if they have been given the real medication or a placebo so it does them no good to falsify their subjective remarks and you cannot argue objective lab results.

Have you ever questioned why the pharmaceutical companies are made to look so bad, why the media portrays it as the American people vs. the American pharmaceutical companies. Dig a little deeper. Yes, we all know the pharmaceutical companies could easily jump ship and run their entire company overseas, thus taxes, stock gains, and taxed stock gains go overseas and political support go overseas too. That's partly the reason why the gov supports the pharm industry so much. The other reason for the us vs. them mindset that has successfully happened....the old strategy...divide and conquer.