The Drug Industry and Medical Research: The Economics of the Kefauver Committee Investigations

This paper reviews the evidence on drug research and considers some of the questions raised in the proceedings of the Kefauver Committee.

Abstract

IN THE course of recent American politics, few confrontations have been more lively and more prolonged than that which was waged between the pharmaceutical industry and the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly (The Kefauver Committee).1 In December, 1959, the committee opened hearings on the industry, and 11,000 pages later, testimony was still being recorded. Now that the record has been closed and the dust from the contest has been allowed time to settle, it is useful to consider some of the questions raised in the proceedings. This paper reviews the evidence on drug research. I