I'd just like to add an interesting post about the real price of medications and just who should be considered criminals because of it:

The Shocking Truth About Drug Prices

Excerpted from the web site located at www.stopFDA.com
operated by Life Extension Foundation

WHAT DRUGS REALLY COST

Did you ever wonder how much it costs a drug company
for the active ingredient in prescription medications?
Some people think it must cost a lot, since many drugs
sell for more than $2.00 per tablet. We did a search
of offshore chemical synthesizers that supply the
active ingredients found in drugs approved by the FDA.
As we have revealed in past issues of Life Extension,
a significant percentage of drugs sold in the United
States contain active ingredients made in other
countries.

In our independent investigation of how much profit
drug companies really make, we obtained the actual
price of active ingredients used in some of the most
popular drugs sold in America. The chart below speaks
for itself.

BRAND NAME OF DRUG

CONSUMER PRICE 100 TABS

COST OF GENERAL ACTIVE INGREDIENTS

PERCENT MARKUP

Celebrex 100 mg $130.27 $0.60 21,712%

Claritin 10 mg $215.17 $0.71 30,306%

Keflex 250 mg $157.39 $1.88 8,372%

Lipitor 20 mg $272.37 $5.80 4,696%

Norvasc 10 mg $188.29 $0.14 134,493%

Paxil 20 mg $220.27 $7.60 2,898%

Prevacid 30 mg $44.77 $1.01 34,136%

Prilosec 20 mg $360.97 $0.52 69,417%

Prozac 20 mg $247.47 $0.11 224,973%

Tenormin 50 mg $104.47 $0.13 80,362%

Vasotec 10 mg $102.37 $0.20 51,185%

Xanax 1mg $136.79 $0.024 569,958%

Zestril 20 mg $89.89 $3.20 2,809%

Zithromax 600mg $1,482.19 $18.78 7,892%

Zocor 40mg $350.27 $8.63 4,059%

Zoloft 50mg $206.87 $1.75 11,821%

*****

Since the cost of prescription drugs is so outrageous,
I thought everyone I knew should know about this.
Please read the following and pass it on.

It pays to shop around. This helps to solve the
mystery as to why they can afford to put a Walgreens
on every corner..................

On Monday night, Steve Wilson, an investigative
reporter for channel 7 News in Detroit, did a story on
generic drug price gouging by pharmacies. He found in
his investigation, that some of these generic drugs
were marked up as much as 3,000% or more. Yes, that's
not a typo..... three thousand percent!

So often, we blame the drug companies for the high
cost of drugs, and usually rightfully so. But in this
case, the fault clearly lies with the pharmacies
themselves. For example, if you had to buy a
prescription drug, and bought the name brand, you
might pay $100 for 100 pills. The pharmacist might
tell you that if you get the generic equivalent, they
would only cost $80, making you think you are "saving"
$20. What the pharmacist is not telling you is that
those 100 generic pills may have only cost him $10!

No wonder so many people go to Canada and other international countries and why the pharm. companies have spend millions this year alone lobbying against importation!

Stacey