If the auto industry operated like Big Pharma: fifteen things you might notice

1. Your average car would cost $4.5 million, representing a 30,000% markup over cost, which is typical for prescription drugs. Automakers would justify this price by saying they needed the money to fund research and development, but in reality, most of their research would be funded by taxpayer dollars through government grants and university research centers.

2. That exact same car could be purchased in Mexico or Canada for under $5,000.

3. Automakers would lobby Congress to outlaw or regulate alternative forms of transportation such as bicycles and airplanes, forcing Americans to rely exclusively on cars. Explanation: the drug industry works hard to discredit alternative medicine, herbs and nutritional supplements, hoping to force consumers to rely on drugs alone.

4. Cars with no safety systems (no seatbelts, no airbags, no crumple zones) would be declared perfectly safe by federal regulators. Car companies, rather than address this lack of safety features, would focus on publicizing the dangers of riding bicycles. Explanation: the FDA currently approves deadly drugs as "safe." Meanwhile, drug companies ignore the dangers of their own drugs and, instead, try to get people to believe that herbs or vitamins are dangerous.

5. The manufacturers of those cars with no safety systems would grow tired of being sued by customers who were injured in their cars, and they would lobby Congress to pass "legal reform" that would immunize all car companies against class action lawsuits. Explanation: drug companies are currently trying to get Congress to pass laws that would make it illegal for consumers to sue for damages. This would shield them from the financial consequences of their dangerous products that kill hundreds of thousands each year.

6. All auto imports would be banned, forcing consumers to buy only U.S. manufactured cars. And if you bought a Toyota and drove it to the U.S., you might be arrested or searched. Explanation: the FDA works hard to maintain a U.S. monopoly on all prescription drug sales. The agency once famously conducted a "drug raid" search of a bus load of senior citizens returning from Canada who had purchased nothing more than prescription medications.

7. Car companies would heavily publicize the release of new car models each year, but in reality, the new models would essentially be "me-too" cars with no real improvements over those made in the 1970's. Explanation: most prescription drugs, even though they are touted as "breakthrough" drugs, are little more than me-too drugs that do nothing different than older, off-patent drugs.

8. Car crash dummy tests that produced fatalities and other disturbing data would be censored by the auto industry, never to see the light of day. Any safety scientist who produced such results would be blackballed from ever conducting crash tests again. Explanation: drug companies routinely bury clinical study results that show the dangers of their drugs. They specifically design studies in a way that exaggerates benefits and minimizes risks. Researchers who don't "play ball" and help distort these drug trial results are blackballed and will never find work in the industry again.

9. Car dealers would be visited by hoards of automobile sales reps promising bribes, first-class vacations, free food and free cars as long as those car dealers would push the right products onto consumers. Explanation: drug companies spend billions each year on handouts to physicians, including outright bribes, fully-paid vacations to exotic resorts (disguised as "Continuing Medical Education" programs), free drug samples, and a never-ending supply of free lunches and other food items.

10. Driver's education programs would be cancelled nationwide. Instead of teaching people how to avoid accidents or repair damaged cars, automakers would encourage people to keep buying new cars. Explanation: organized medicine doesn't teach healthy safety or disease prevention. Instead, the entire system is designed around waiting for people to get sick, then treating them with expensive drugs, surgeries and other medical procedures. The system actually encourages chronic illness by neglecting to teach prevention.

11. Companies would make up new reasons why you need more automobiles, hoping to convince you to buy a dozen or more. They might say you need one car to make you feel happy, another for basic transportation, a third to match the color of your house, and so on. Explanation: drug companies frequently invent new, fictitious diseases, and then try to sell you drugs to treat those made-up afflictions. Examples include ADHD, FSD (female sexual dysfunction), General Anxiety Disorder, and other made-up diseases that have no purpose other than selling drugs. Essentially, Big Pharma wants to define everyone as diseased in some way, and then convince people they need a lifetime of prescription drugs to "manage" those diseases. From the moment you're born, the drug companies say, you're already diseased.

12. Car advertising would show happy, healthy people driving down country highways with the wind blowing through their hair. But once you get the car, you find out it breaks all the time, it doesn't perform as promised, and after a couple of years, it won't even start anymore. Explanation: prescription drugs are advertised with images of happy, healthy, youthful, energetic people. But the reality is that once you start taking prescription drugs, the health of your entire body and nervous system (brain included) starts to go downhill. People who take lots of prescription drugs are nearly always extremely unhealthy, with obvious disease physiology and muddled cognitive function.

13. Cars would be hyped to buyers with fancy, full-color brochures touting all the benefits of the vehicle. But federally-mandated warnings about car safety problems would be printed in 6-point type on a tiny label hidden under the driver's seat. Explanation: drug companies are required by the FDA to print safety warnings on certain product labels and advertisements, but these warnings are almost always presented in an impossible-to-read format and are, therefore, routinely ignored by doctors and patients alike.

14. Driving certain cars would have unexpected side effects. Driving one car, for example, would make you extremely aggressive and violent... perhaps even suicidal. Driving another car might make all your muscles hurt. And a third car might make you feel an instant loss of sexual drive. Explanation: prescription drugs always have unintended side effects. Antidepressant drugs cause violent behavior and suicides. Statin drugs can cause severe muscle pain (rhabdomyolysis) and loss of cognitive function. They also block the production of cholesterol, the precursor to sex hormones.

... and finally ...

15. Cars would be sold to you with high-priced features like a sunroof, air conditioning, 6-CD changer, navigation system and other items, but upon delivery, you would find none of the features you paid for. The car would be completely different from the one you thought you bought. Explanation: drugs are sold to patients with hyped-up promises of multiple health benefits. But once people start taking the drugs, they find the benefits were exaggerated. In other words, the drug they end up taking is nothing like the drug they thought they purchased -- the drug advertised with all the features and benefits on TV.

This list was authored by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger. To see more list-oriented commentary on organized medicine and the drug industry, check out:

The top ten reasons why the U.S. needs more pharmaceutical companies

The top ten things we'd see if the FDA were put in charge of the criminal justice system

The top ten things you'd be able to do if you didn't live under a system of health oppression masquerading as modern medicine.