No evidence that vast majority of all prescription medications are consumed in US

Americans are known for higher-than-average prescription drug prices. But a video shared on Facebook claims they also take more drugs than any other country.

"Did you know that America is 5% of all of the world’s population and takes 87% of all prescription medications in the world?" asked the narrator of a TikTok video that was shared on Facebook. 

The woman, who describes herself as a holistic health nurse in her TikTok bio, suggested that Americans’ life expectancy is relatively low and that the U.S. is one of the few nations that lets pharmaceutical companies advertise on television.

The Facebook post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

We found no evidence to support the claim about drug consumption in the U.S, which accounts for about 4% of the world’s population.

"The 87% statistic is unsupportable by any definition or measure anyone could ever conceive of," said Michael Kleinrock, lead research director of IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science, a health data company in North Carolina.

According to the company’s latest reports, in 2022:

• The U.S. consumed 7.7% of all medicines. That’s based on a count of daily doses of medicine;

• The U.S. accounted for 42.4% of global spending on medicines. 

Kleinrock said IQVIA counts medicines — those that require prescriptions and those that don’t — because not all medicines require prescriptions in all countries. 

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The company defines medicines as those that are approved and regulated by governmental agencies, he said.

The spending figure suggests the 87% claim is exaggerated, given that the U.S. typically spends twice as much or more than other countries for prescription drugs.

A spokesperson for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of advanced, industrialized nations, said IQVIA is the best known source on global medicine use.

Six in 10 adults in the U.S. said they take at least one prescription drug, and a quarter take four or more, according to KFF, a health policy research nonprofit.

From 2015 to 2018, about 49% said they used at least one prescription drug, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cynthia Cox, a KFF vice president, said she knows of no evidence to support the idea that the U.S. consumes anywhere near 87% of all prescription medications.

In 2017, we rated a claim that the U.S. consumes 80% of all opioids False. Experts told us they are not aware of any research since then that supports that claim.

With no evidence to back the 87% claim for all prescription drugs, we rate it False.

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