The Drug industry has profit margins between 20%-25%. This is higher than any other industry of comparable size.

The National Center for Policy Analysis puts the number at about 16 percent, in line with similar industries.

The industry spends far more on advertising and administration than on developing new drugs. Most of the "new" drugs introduced to the market are simply new dosage amounts of existing drugs.

This is bullshit, and I've already cited numbers. I can cite more, if you like. Notice that even when you include ALL the advertising, not just direct-to-consumer, it's still far less than the R&D budget at that time.

Additionally, we have the phenomenon of the drug companies inventing new applications for existing proprietary drugs. In essence, inventing new diseases.

There is nothing wrong with this, and it's very common. My wife stands to benefit from an MS application for the statins I currently take for cholesterol. Certainly this is not "inventing new diseases."

And the tax code allows R & D as a deductible business expense instead of being capitalized over the usefull life of the patent protected drug. Neat deal, kinda makes you wish this largess was available to farmers too.

Most industries have this, including the one I work in. If farmers had significant R & D expenses, they would too.

The Drug industry claims a cost of $ 897 million to develop a new drug. Public Citizen divided the number of new drugs on the market by the industry's total R & D budgets. They reduced this figure to only$ 71 million after deducting the tax benefits.

The Tufts Center confirms the $897 million figure (in 2003) for bringing a drug to market, and explains why. The methodology and reasons for this are shown from a study back in 2001, when the number was $802 million.

You'll excuse me if I find their methodology a bit more plausible than that of "Public Citizen."

Now, I think I've pounded the usual leftist myths deep enough into the ground. I'm done here.