Even as drug makers promise to support Washington's health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation’s drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years.

IMS Health, a company that supplies the pharmaceutical companies with sales data, predicts that new health reform legislation -- combined with a projected upswing in the economy -- will result in a net gain of more than $137 billion in total market sales over the next four years.

It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government's leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada -- and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements.

This is the story of one of the great unspoken scandals of our times. Today, the people across the world who most need life-saving medicine are being prevented from producing it.... Why? So rich drug companies can protect their patents – and profits. There is an alternative to this sick system, but we are choosing to ignore it.

"Since Obama came into office, the drug industry has received everything it wants, domestic and foreign," said James Love, who leads an international nonprofit promoting low-cost distribution of drugs to fight the world's most devastating diseases.

"Most patients assume that when they're prescribed a drug, the decision is made on the basis of an objective review of the scientific evidence," said Lisa Cosgrove.... "However, our study raises the question: Is that decision based in science, or is there a financial incentive behind it?...

But while RealAge promotes better living through nonmedical solutions, the site makes its money by selling better living through drugs.

Senator Charles E. Grassley on Tuesday asked the drug maker Pfizer to provide details of its payments to at least 149 faculty members at Harvard Medical School.

Recently Senator Charles Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has been looking into financial ties between the pharmaceutical industry and the academic physicians who largely determine the market value of prescription drugs. He hasn't had to look very hard.

What is most revealing about the financial meltdown and economic crisis, however, is that it illustrates that corporations — if left to their own worst instincts — will destroy themselves and the system that nurtures them. It is rare that this lesson is so graphically illustrated. It is one the world must quickly learn, if we are to avoid the most serious existential threat we have yet faced: climate change.

U.S. presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are reviewing their support for allowing individuals to import cheaper prescription drugs...

US hospitals and long-term care facilities annually flush millions of pounds of unused pharmaceuticals down the drain, pumping contaminants into America's drinking water, according to an ongoing Associated Press investigation.

Drug companies are quietly pushing through price hikes of 100% — or even more than 1,000% — for a very small but growing number of prescription drugs, helping to drive up costs for insurers, patients and government programs.

The pharmaceutical industry, long an ally of Republicans, has increasingly worked itself into the good graces of the Democratic Party and by doing so has helped block the Democrats' top prescription-drug initiatives.

A vast array of pharmaceuticals - including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones - have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans...

Many Americans, including numerous seniors and people with chronic conditions, obtain prescription drugs from international sources not because they're scratching some itch for faraway places. The shameful reality is that they're looking abroad simply because they can't afford U.S. drug prices.

Prescription-drug ads prompt nearly one-third of Americans to ask their doctors about an advertised medicine, and 82% of those who ask say their physicians recommended a prescription.

Less than a week after issuing a sweeping ruling that bars most lawsuits against medical device makers, the Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in the first of two cases that could determine whether drug makers receive similar protection.

“People will die if they are getting drugs that don’t have clear evidence that the benefits outweigh the risks,” said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s health research group.

More than 7,000 children get rushed to emergency rooms each year after suffering adverse reactions to cough and cold medicines, according to the first national estimate of the risks posed by the widely used remedies.

The Food and Drug Administration received 2½ times more reports of serious health problems linked to medication in 2005 than it did in 1998...