Overdosing on greed.

In her illuminating article "Withholding the Cure" (September issue), N. A. Siegal reveals the extent of pharmaceutical industry greed: Even in Third World countries it must ensure profits by controlling the flow of less expensive generics. But Siegal does not probe why. Drug firms would have us believe that profits are needed to support costly research. The facts, however, speak otherwise.

Most new pharmaceuticals are not medical breakthroughs but "me-too drugs," compounds similar to those already available.

They are marketed with one aim: to reap profits from already proven drug therapies. These facts came to light more than a decade ago, in 1989, when the Senate Special Committee on Aging held hearings about outlandish drug prices, and its staff investigated the issue. During the five-year period studied, companies brought twenty-four me-too drugs to market for every breakthrough developed.

Nor does the high price of pharmaceuticals pay for research. Medicines that have been available for decades--research costs had long been recovered--showed the sharpest rise in price; yet manufacturers had created few if any breakthroughs during that time.

So why is the cost of drugs exorbitant?

Plainly put: to gain profit. Analysts found evidence that companies set prices as high "as the market will bear," not correlated to any rational amount based on revenue spent for research.

Who, then, is footing the bill for pharmaceutical research? Believe it or not, we are: first through inflated drug charges we must pay, and second, through our tax code that grants the industry lavish benefits--well in excess of $1 billion annually--and diverts revenue that we could otherwise spend on roads, education, and parks.

Make no mistake. When it comes to greed, the pharmaceutical industry has been overdosing for years.

Nancy J. Herin

Darnestown, Maryland