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Prozac revolutionized the treatment of depression.
A new generation of cancer drugs attacks only cancer cells and leaves healthy cells alone.
Hypertension drugs and cholesterol-lowering medication have helped people avoid heart surgery.
Yet, despite the fact that Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. and the nation's other drug companies make products that help people feel better and live longer, the drug industry's image is on life-support.
The growing criticism of the industry has been especially harsh from public officials.
U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., whose district is home to 6,200 Lilly employees, has accused the industry of "raping the American people."
Minnesota's attorney general released a report this fall calling the industry "the other drug cartel."
In addition, fewer than half of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll had a positive view of the industry. In fact, drug companies ranked below the federal government and airlines and just above the legal profession.
"I think that they're ripping people off," said Joe Burchard, a retired driving instructor in Evansville who takes several medications after a recent heart attack.
All the public whipping is enough to depress the CEO of the company that produced Prozac.
"It's immensely frustrating for every one of us in the industry," Eli Lilly CEO Sidney Taurel said in a recent interview.
He said the problem is that health care is something people don't necessarily want, but need. And that makes the public suspicious of those making a living off that industry.
Health care expenses rose faster than any other major segment of consumer spending in 2002, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's because people are using more drugs, prices are going up and people are shifting prescriptions to newer, more expensive drugs, according to the American Institutes for Research.
Drug companies bear the brunt of consumers' anger, Taurel said, because while drug expenses make up 10 percent of the nation's health care costs, they represent 30 percent of out-of-pocket expenses.
Dr. Robert Blendon, who directs the Harvard Program on Public Opinion and Health and Social Policy, agrees that's one reason people are mad at drug companies. But that anger is fueled, he said, when they see news reports on seniors who can't afford medicine, right after a business report on how drug companies are making large profits.
"People see that they're such a successful industry and then they hear that they can't afford to give them discounts," he said. "That just leads to this generic anger."
That anger intensified when Americans became more aware in recent years of the cheaper drug prices in Canada and other countries where there are price controls, said John E. Calfee, a health policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute.
The pharmaceutical industry successfully lobbied to keep out of the new Medicare prescription drug law a provision that would have allowed drugs to be imported from Canada.
But drug companies aren't home free, Calfee said.
"I think the industry had this forlorn hope that the Medicare drug benefit would get them out of the spotlight. Maybe someday it will, but not in the short term, because people don't think it's a very good benefit," Calfee said, "and there will be a lot of pressure for price controls."
A spokesman for the industry's main trade association said the drug company's bad rap is unfair.
"We certainly have a fair number of critics, and we think that's because we've been barraged by a steady drumbeat of false statements and distorted allegations," said Jeff Trewitt, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association.
Those charges -- which the industry disputes -- include that drug companies spend more on advertising than on research and development, get significant government help with research costs, try to unfairly stave off competition from generic manufacturers, and have undue influence in Washington and state capitals.
Taurel, however, said the industry could make improvements. At Lilly, Taurel said, he's tried to set standards on avoiding conflicts of interest in clinical research, maintaining ethical conduct by the company's sales representatives and making information the most important part of the company's consumer advertising.
Trewitt said the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association will continue to push Congress to address the problem of the uninsured, so more people can get help paying for drugs.
The trade group also has stepped up efforts to publicize the various programs drug companies offer to help low-income people get free or discounted drugs.
The industry's bad image isn't hurting its bottom line -- yet. The danger, experts say, is that an unsympathetic public could be receptive to lawsuits against drug companies and elected officials will continue to ride the public sentiment and try to respond.
"At the moment (drug companies) have done so well in the political process, in supporting the candidates who don't necessarily reflect the public views, that they remain relatively protected," Blendon said. "But over the long term, they're at risk if there's a shift in the Congress."
Jane Guernsey, a retired public employee living in Pittsboro, said she can see both sides. Guernsey, who had a kidney transplant about six years ago, takes more than 25 pills a day.
"I would not be alive had it not been for some of the drug companies," Guernsey said.
But the 74-year-old worries how her prescription coverage might change under the new Medicare law and knows there are people not getting the drugs they need now.
"The pharmaceutical companies need money for research for medications that have kept me alive as well as many others and for generations that will be coming beyond us," she said. "At the same time, (drugs) are very expensive. It's kind of a Catch-22."
Call Maureen Groppe at 1-202-906-8118.
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