Be Aware of Pharmaceutical Drug Companies Promise | Trading Greed for Health
Written by Confusion support on August 18, 2008 – 10:34 am -
The medical breakthroughs over the last 100 years have been astounding needless to say. We are all grateful for this. However, at times it is still important that we recognize the interplay between the doctors, drug companies, patients and society. You have to protect yourself, because no one else is going to in a world where greed rules.
No person should be taking medicines without some knowledge of what they are taking. With the internet available to anyone, it is a good medium to use for your research. When your doctor recommends a drug to you, you have to understand that he has gained knowledge about this drug from pharmaceutical companies that make the drug, and their sales reps. Very few if any doctors have done extensive research on the drugs that they prescribe. If the drug is new it takes some time, perhaps years, before a doctor will know if that drug is working in his patients. It is possible that, by that time, the drug reps will be encouraging a different drug.
It is important to understand that pharmaceutical companies make their large sums of money by coming out with new drugs and getting them popular. These drugs must be sold on the competitive market just like other competitive items. Doctors are not approaching drug companies and saying “That is a good drug; let me use that for my patients.” It is the opposite. Drug companies are approaching doctors and convincing them to use the drug, based on the sales literature.
With drug companies there is only a moderate interest in the patient’s health. That usually means, “If the drug works some and doesn’t cause too many deaths it is saleable.” Their goal is to sell drugs, period. This means that if one of their drugs ends up the subject of a lawsuit and they lose millions, they must quickly find other drugs in their arsenal that can make up the loss. This is very dangerous to the public, and you should be aware of it. Increasingly the major drug companies have been incurring huge lawsuit expenses. So, in turn, they are moving as rapidly a possible to find new quick drugs to make up the losses. It is very possible that many of the drugs on the market now are “make up our loss” drugs. These would be the drugs that are somewhat useful but may not be the best for your long-term health. One such drug is probably Merck’s Gardasil vaccine.
Once greater society is convinced via commercials, drug sales reps, over-worked doctors and even neighbors that we all need these drugs, the pharmaceutical execs sit back and smile as the spiraling mass acceptance by the public becomes complete. Suddenly everyone thinks the drug is great and many even now consider it as necessary, not knowing that the main purpose of the drug’s release to the public was to make A LOT of money for the pharmaceutical company, with only a moderate interest in actual long-term health of people.
It can’t be stopped once it gets to that point, except by another lawsuit.
Posted in Medical Confusion |
August 27th, 2008 at 6:57 am
Just saw in the paper this weekend that congress is hoping to bring forth legislation this coming year to change the relationship between doctors and drug reps, so that the doctor is more informed of all the options when selecting drugs and can make a more intelligent decision.