Eight products that I don't need

When I was in the UK, I stocked up on an over-the-counter lip cream for cold sores. It comes in a tiny tube and has 5% Acyclovir. Cold sores go away almost instantly with this cream which is available only by prescription in the U.S. I don't have a doctor and have only had health insurance about 6 of the 16 years that I've lived away from home. Needless to say, I won't pay for the doctor visit to get the prescription (that has to be represcribed every two years EVEN THOUGH herpes simplex is a very common virus that you can't get rid of) and can't afford to pay for the drug anyway.

In the U.S., there are no less than eight over-the-counter remedies for cold sores. All with a drug other than Acyclovir, and none of them work. I know because I've had cold sores since I was four and have tried everything. They don't have any of these "other" remedies in the UK because they don't NEED them. The one that works is available to everyone and it's cheap, cheaper even than our non-remedies. The cost of the Acyclovir cream in the UK is $6 for the generic brand and $8 for Zovirax, the name brand, compared to about $50 here for a prescription for Zovirax and $6-12 for our OTC products.

Our entire pharmaceutical industry works like this, marketing dozens of useless products to suckers like me who can't get the real deal and then charging a small fortune for prescription drugs. But here's what I find most interesting. GlaxoSmithKline makes Abreva, the over-the-counter remedy that I had been using, and they're the SAME COMPANY as GlaxoWellcome that makes Zovirax!


So these jerks are charging us ten times more than the Europeans are paying for the same drug, but keep access to it so restricted that they can make even more money marketing products to us that we don't even want! It's a total racket. How much longer are we going to put up with this?

If you have examples, please post. Thanks!