To understand why prescription medications are so expensive, as well as why there are so many side effects, you have to understand the economics of the patenting process.

Natural substances cannot be patented as medical therapies. For example, vitamin C, which occurs naturally in fruits, vegetables, and other food sources, cannot be patented.

Similarly, substances that occur naturally in the human body — such as progesterone, a hormone produced in the ovaries of women and the adrenal glands of men and women — cannot be patented. However, a synthetic version of progesterone can be patented. And it has been.

If it’s a choice between natural progesterone and the synthetic form Provera, I bet you can guess which one the pharmaceutical companies prefer physicians prescribe: the profitable one, Provera.

Provera (and similar synthetic versions of progesterone) are used in medications for birth control, heavy menstrual bleeding, and PMS symptoms. But Provera is associated with serious adverse effects, including blood clots, cancer, and irreversible osteoporosis — even after just one dose of the medication.

Natural progesterone, on the other hand, is associated with very few adverse effects.

Prescription medications have been driving the profits of the Big Pharma cartel for more than 100 years. As noted, Big Pharma only sells products it can patent — that is, synthetic, foreign substances.

It doesn’t take a medical degree to understand that a foreign substance is more likely to cause adverse effects than a natural substance.

Americans take more prescription drugs than any other people on the planet. But are we healthier for doing so? Not even close. In fact, we rank last or next to last on every single health indicator compared to other Western countries.