In this country, all you need do if you wish to vilify something is stick the word "big" in front of it. Big, we've been led to believe, is bad. Whether it's corporations, oil, government, or business, I'd say that even children -- so long, I suppose, as they're not big children -- get the message that booing and hissing are in order.

It's just one more band wagon I refuse to jump aboard. It so happens that some big things are better than some small things. On the other hand, some things that are huge are never even called big. Mainly, I believe, that's because most of the labeling in America is done by the left-wing media. So it is that lobbies for the defense attorneys, the teachers union, and AARP, for instance, which are very well-funded and extremely powerful, never find themselves described as big.

But of all the entities saddled with that epithet, no group is as universally despised as the pharmaceutical industry. I think all rational people would agree that Al Qaeda gets better press than these guys. In Hollywood, manufacturing and selling legal drugs is regarded as far worse than dealing illegal ones. But if you disagree, off the top of my head I can name three movies in which the arch villains were people involved in manufacturing prescription meds. During the same period, until "United 93" came along, I don't recall any movies in which Islamic terrorists were depicted in all their gory glory. The three movies I have in mind were the exciting "The Fugitive," the brain-numbing "The Constant Gardener," and a two-hour "Diagnosis Murder" called "Without Warning," which I must confess I wrote.

In my own defense, I will only state two facts. One, I was on staff, and the storyline, which dealt with the testing of a life-saving drug in a Latin American country, was not one I would have chosen. And, two, I saved what I regarded as the best speech for the beleaguered owner of the company. Although I naturally had to give Dr. Sloan (aka Dick Van Dyke) the last, self-righteous word in the scene, I allowed the executive to point out that while everybody is opposed to new drugs being tested on convicts, citizens of the third world, and even on animals, they simultaneously demand immediate cures for everything from AIDS to Alzheimer's.

The truth is, all of us expect the pharmaceutical outfits to come up with one miracle after another, no matter how much time and money the companies have to expend. On top of that, once a discovery has been made, patents have the shelf life of cottage cheese, and it's only a short while before all the competitors get to put out their generic knock-offs. And as if all that weren't enough, the FDA can take several years before allowing a new product to be marketed or even deciding it won't be marketed.

Even after they've been given the green light, the company isn't in the clear. Just let four or five people in the country have an adverse reaction to the new drug, and juries can be counted on to bring in multi-million dollar judgments.

We've all heard the line that suggests that on their death bed, nobody ever said they wish they'd spent more time at the office. Well, I'm betting it's equally true that when people are in pain or their kids are ailing, nobody's ever whined that some pharmaceutical giant made an unseemly profit last year. The thing we should keep in mind is that last year's profit not only made the shareholders giddy, but allowed the company to sink a couple of billion dollars this year into trying to find a cure for Parkinson's or MS or sickle cell anemia.

So far as I'm concerned, the one thing big pharmaceuticals have coming is a big cheer.

You can learn more about Burt and his latest book, Conservatives Are from Mars (Liberals Are from San Francisco) at his home page. Write Mr. Prelutsky at: