Quote from Lenin:

Au contraire,
Remember, when these drugs were released and touted to the skies with POOR studies against only placebo, they were released with 17+++ years of patent protection. They weren't released generically but instead as CALAN (verapamil), CAPOTIN and (captopril), and TENORMIN (atenolol) all of which cost an order of magnitude (10 times or more) more than the $50 figure so freely thrown out here.
Even lowly hydrochlorothiazide cost far more than $50 when it was peddled as ESIDRIX...and those 1960's and 1970's dollars were worth a lot more than the Charmin in current circulation.

I was referring to the arguments made by ALLHAT itself. The study results conclude that diuretics represent a significant cost savings over everything else. While that's true for the drugs that were chosen in the study, I was merely pointing out that it's not exactly true for the classes as a whole. For example, lisinopril, even though it's available as a generic, is still relatively expensive. However, that doesn't mean that all ACE inhibitors are expensive. Captopril works just as well for about the same cost as the diuretic.

[QUOTE]Why would anyone suppose the ARBs's and NORVASC are the drugs currently being pushed: because they work so superbly? No, because they are under patent protection and can be priced at any sweet spot the traffic (and insurance companies) will bear. To peddle the pricey drugs the doctors must be "induced" to prescribe them...and $$$INDUCED$$$ they ARE! To get good drug test results in trials the researchers can be equally INDUCED! And, of course, if they work poorly or indeed NOT AT ALL, they can always be combined with one, two, three, four, or five drugs that work better and add to the pharmaceutical profits!
Unfortunately, this is very true. I don't think that your GP gets a personal kickback. But, he/she is visited regularly by the drug reps. And, has samples galore of the high profit drugs.

Pal