Low-cost therapeutic agents. Uses and abuses.

The past quarter century has seen a transformation of the pharmaceutical industry from blind empiricism to the design of drugs to act as agonists or antagonists at specific receptor sites. As truly effective technology, many have led to marked savings in cost. Savings have been achieved when therapeutic drugs, often highly specific, can be substituted for surgery and other invasive procedures and when therapeutic drugs can be used to prevent illness and the need for treatment. Further savings are achieved with the reduced prescription of ineffective drugs. It is estimated that therapeutic drugs and vaccines contribute about half of medicine's contribution to increased life expectancy and improved quality of life in this century at about 7% of national expenditures for medical care in the United States.