Pharmaceutical industry makes more money than all U.S. gas stations combined

The number of prescriptions in the United States has risen a full two-thirds over the last decade. However, the recent concerns about Vioxx and Bextra have raised new concerns about the safety of all these drugs. In fact, about 125,000 people die from drug reactions and mistakes every year, making it the fourth most common cause of death in America.

• Alice and Ken Heckman each start their morning by cracking open a plastic tray with scores of pills in a rainbow of pastel colors.
• Between the two of them, they gulp 29 pills every day: a regimen of 14 drugs, with a chaser of dietary supplements.
• Here's the curious part: They feel pretty hale for people in their early 70s, working around the house and volunteering with several community groups.
• They each had heart fixes years ago -- him a bypass and her a vessel-clearing stent -- but fully recovered.
• He has worked his way through heartburn, arthritis, an enlarged prostate and occasional mild depression.
• About 130 million Americans -- many far healthier than the Heckmans -- swallow, inject, inhale, infuse, spray and pat on prescribed medication every month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
• Americans buy much more medicine per person than any other country.
• The number of prescriptions has swelled by two-thirds in the last decade to 3.5 billion yearly, according to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical consulting company.
• Recently, safety questions have beset some depression and anti-inflammatory drugs, pushing pain relievers Vioxx and Bextra from the market.
• Rising ranks of doctors, researchers and public health experts are saying that America is overmedicating itself.
• That could make pharmaceuticals the fourth-leading national cause of death after heart disease, cancer and stroke.
• The pharmaceutical industry served up more than $250 billion worth of sales last year, most in prescriptions, industry consultants say.
• ''We are taking way too many drugs for dubious or exaggerated ailments,'' said Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine.
• ''What the drug companies are doing now is promoting drugs for long-term use to essentially healthy people.