I was cruising through a New York Times article about big drug companies and their image problems when I was stopped by some numbers that simply don’t compute.

It wasn’t the drug companies’ declining prestige that surprised me.

The Times cited all kinds of reasons: prices consistently higher than in other countries, safety concerns such as the Vioxx withdrawal, questions about antidepressants and hormone replacement therapies, more use of generics, and pervasive advertising that has gotten downright irritating.

The Times cited a poll taken last month: Only 9 percent of Americans believed drug companies were honest, down from 14 percent in 2004.

That’s when I said, “Huh?!” You mean more than 90 percent of us believe drug companies are - well, what’s the opposite of honest - crooks? And we’re still swilling their products by the billions?

Pfizer, whose sales dropped 15 percent in the third quarter - one of the biggest losses among the top companies - will still make about $8 billion in profit this year on sales of about $51 billion.

The Times article contrasted our supposed distrust of drug manufacturers with other industries. Thirty-four percent of people said they trusted banks and 39 percent trusted supermarkets. Apparently two-thirds of our fellow citizens are putting their money under their mattress, and I can’t figure out where 61 percent of us are getting our food.

WHO DO WE Americans trust, for crying out loud?

According to a Harris survey taken about this time last year, we have a relatively high level of trust in our police and military but very little trust in political parties, our government, trade unions and big business.

Compared to Europeans we are less likely to trust the media and United Nations but more likely to trust our religious institutions.

I long ago resigned myself to the fact that my chosen profession is not trusted. Americans do not trust “the press” by a ratio of three-to-one. But they still buy newspapers and click on the evening news.

Another survey revealed that Americans’ most trusted sources of information are (drum roll here followed by trumpet fanfare): Museums! Nearly nine out of 10 Americans said information from museums is more reliable than what they get from newspapers, television, magazines - even books. Which says to me that we believe in the past more than the present.

AND WHAT ABOUT the Internet? I couldn’t find any data, but the measure of gullibility, if not trust, must be high. What other explanation for the urgent e-mail messages I receive daily about flesh-eating bananas, HIV tainted needles found in theater seats, pay phone coin returns and vending machines, and antiperspirants that cause breast-cancer.

Even if the polls show that fewer than half of you find me credible, let me state most definitively that Bill Gates is not giving his fortune away to people who forward a particular e-mail and no, people cannot look up your driver’s license on the Internet. (I fell for that last one, but it was funny.)

I think we Americans are not nearly as cynical as we claim to be. Our lips say no but our behavior is something else again. If we didn’t trust each other, we wouldn’t be out there on the roadway putting our very lives in the hands of every other driver who somehow managed to pass a not-very-challenging licensing procedure.

If we didn’t trust each other, we would all be growing our own food, we’d never eat in restaurants and we’d certainly never submit to any medical procedure.

We all live by faith; we just don’t want to admit it.

Mary Koch is caregiver for her husband, John E. Andrist, a stroke survivor. They welcome your comments at P.O. Box 3346, Omak WA 98841 or e-mail marykoch@marykoch.com. Recent columns are on the Internet at www.marykoch.com.