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IMO, I can't honest say that drug companies are at the root of making up diseases. However, I do believe that a lot of what's wrong with us is what is put into our foods. As a teenager I don't remember so many family members, friends with things like cancer, etc. I'm not totally blaming what's in our food these days lack if self-control and exercise is part of it as well. As a whole we've got lazier then we used to be.
Food has become a business a BIG business too. What's being pumped into our food these days is taking it's toll on us, people eat not just because they are hungry but because they are bored, depressed and I, myself believe what's pumped into our foods can also be addicting as well. This does help the drug companies too make more money with what's going on with our food, which begs the question, is one helping the other?
What about the pharmacy in West Virginia? There are about 20,000 people in the county and the pharmacy sold 25,000 prescriptions for opioids.
Was it 25000 DIFFERENT prescriptions or multiple scripts per person (more likely)?
Besides that, if these people obtained these drugs from doctors, where is the problem? Do we now trust some govt agency instead of doctors?! If doctors cant be trusted to be responsible with prescriptions, why in the world should we be trusting them with other serious treatment decisions?
Plus, if the pharma companies were truly making that much money (if they had every single person in a county buying their drugs), surely they would never permit govt to come in and make them nearly impossible to get, its all about the money, they are going to make darn sure those drugs are EASILY accessible to everyone and doctors can give them as liberally as they like.
I'm going to assume by your bolding of one sentence and ignoring the others that you don't, though.
There's no big secret. They do not invent diseases. It's just not done.
They look at diseases being treated and attempt to find better treatments.
One place where pharma used to have a huge issue was "me too" drugs (not the hashtag movement) where they'd invent something that treated a disease they'd already invented a good drug for, and that new drug would be the same as the old drug that either just went off patent or was about to go off patent, with minor modifications.
FDA cracked down on that years ago, fortunately.
But, no... they were not INVENTING diseases.
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Ahh, this tells me everything and I don't watch that much. When I do watch it's nothing but pharma ads NON-STOP!
I do work full time by the way and post here on C-D in my spare time. Sometimes I have more time than others.
Since you don't watch TV I would assume you don't get much news either?
Did you read the article? I would assume not either.
I read news. I didn't need to read the article because I know that pharma companies don't invent diseases.
I don't like pharma ads on TV and I actually have written scripts for some of them... not any currently on TV as I got out of pharma a few years ago.
The pharma ad is designed to get a person who thinks they have a given disease (say, ED or depression) to ask their doctor about that particular company's drug, in the hopes that the doctor will agree that that drug is a good choice and prescribe it.
They are not designed to make people who don't have a disease think they have it and their doctors are not going to prescribe drugs for diseases that people do not have.
An exception is mental health. Plenty of people are probably apt to think they are depressed and need antidepressants. So, I see overprescribing in that particular therapeutic area, and that does bother me.
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I don't know who invented ADD and ADHD, but I believe those are totally made up diseases (for the most part - there are some EXTREME cases of typically young males who might fit the criteria) - but for the most part, I believe the diseases were made up to drug kids who can't sit in school for six plus hours.
They give these kids Ritalin, which I think is a crime. I have read some reports of not good outcomes in teenage and older years (don't know what the long-term effects are - addiction issues that may be related, etc.).
Parents are totally convinced their kids "have" these made-up diseases (I believe the motive for believing the diagnoses has to do with not knowing what to do when teachers are complaining your kid won't sit still in school, is acting out, etc.) - Again: The reason could be just not being able to sit so long, boredom, food allergies, etc. Could be any number of things - but now it is ADD and ADHD (the latter the "enhanced" diagnosis).
Doctors, drug companies, "educators," and parents are all complicit in this one.
Edited to add: It is a known "fact" (as "they" say), that kids cannot sit for "x" number of hours, and boys are more restless for whatever reason. In Montessori, Waldorf, and other more sophisticated learning environments (as well as home school environments where the parents actually know their kids and don't usually torture them by making them sit while "facts" are poured into their heads) - in those more creative environments, it is common knowledge that making kids sit for hours on end is not healthy. But "regular" teachers don't seem to know this, and their administrators do not know it either - public schools are merely indoctrination camps and you'd better sit still, dammit, or we will drug you into oblivion!
I was always in trouble as a kid because I couldn't sit still in class. It wasn't ADD or ADHD, I was bored. A few classes I had, the teachers made them interesting, but most of the classes I had consisted of a teacher standing in front of the class and droning on for an hour.
Not all kids learn by listening to someone drone on and on and on.
When people start to realize and implement a variety of ways to teach kids, you'll stop having all this ADD and ADHD nonsense going on. A lot of kids are the "hands on" type - they learn much better by doing, not just sitting and listening.
Kids have a ton of energy, some more so than others. Expecting a high energy kid to just sit there all day...I see it like this: (And I'm not saying kids are dogs) You would never get a Border Collie and expect him to live with you in a tiny apartment, only giving him a half an hour to an hour outside each day. Your BC would destroy your house because he will have way too much energy that he doesn't know what to do with or have an outlet to release it.
It's not something that needs to be treated with a pill that zombifies them, the entire structure of "teacher stands in front of the class at a whiteboard or chalkboard and talks the entire hour while the kids sit there" needs to be changed. They need to get involved. They need to be doing something.
But, no, we'll call it ADD or ADHD, diagnose way too many kids this way because it's easier, and everyone goes home happy. Except the kid.
I agree with you that there are some extreme cases where yes, the kid has an issue, but the majority who have been labeled ADD or ADHD and have drugs thrown down their throats? No. It's lazy adulting.
I was always in trouble as a kid because I couldn't sit still in class. It wasn't ADD or ADHD, I was bored. A few classes I had, the teachers made them interesting, but most of the classes I had consisted of a teacher standing in front of the class and droning on for an hour.
Not all kids learn by listening to someone drone on and on and on.
When people start to realize and implement a variety of ways to teach kids, you'll stop having all this ADD and ADHD nonsense going on. A lot of kids are the "hands on" type - they learn much better by doing, not just sitting and listening.
Kids have a ton of energy, some more so than others. Expecting a high energy kid to just sit there all day...I see it like this: (And I'm not saying kids are dogs) You would never get a Border Collie and expect him to live with you in a tiny apartment, only giving him a half an hour to an hour outside each day. Your BC would destroy your house because he will have way too much energy that he doesn't know what to do with or have an outlet to release it.
It's not something that needs to be treated with a pill that zombifies them, the entire structure of "teacher stands in front of the class at a whiteboard or chalkboard and talks the entire hour while the kids sit there" needs to be changed. They need to get involved. They need to be doing something.
But, no, we'll call it ADD or ADHD, diagnose way too many kids this way because it's easier, and everyone goes home happy. Except the kid.
I agree with you that there are some extreme cases where yes, the kid has an issue, but the majority who have been labeled ADD or ADHD and have drugs thrown down their throats? No. It's lazy adulting.
I used to be a teacher, but I blame the educational system for the glut of kids on ADHD meds. When they realized that kids with actual ADD or ADHD were calmer on those drugs, they started to see any sign of a kid being active, outgoing, goofing off as "this kid is inattentive and/or hyperactive" and they started putting kids through this mill of school testing, getting parents on board, drugging the child to improve classroom behavior, etc.
It's lazy teaching, really.
None of that is the fault of pharma. Some kids are actually ADD or ADHD and they do very well on meds for it during school hours/homework time.
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IMO, I can't honest say that drug companies are at the root of making up diseases. However, I do believe that a lot of what's wrong with us is what is put into our foods. As a teenager I don't remember so many family members, friends with things like cancer, etc. I'm not totally blaming what's in our food these days lack if self-control and exercise is part of it as well. As a whole we've got lazier then we used to be.
Food has become a business a BIG business too. What's being pumped into our food these days is taking it's toll on us, people eat not just because they are hungry but because they are bored, depressed and I, myself believe what's pumped into our foods can also be addicting as well. This does help the drug companies too make more money with what's going on with our food, which begs the question, is one helping the other?
This is a whole different issue and it is the FDA, after all... it's all linked.
That I DO believe has some merit and is worthy of investigation.
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They look at diseases being treated and attempt to find better treatments.
I have a problem with this "treatment" because I do believe that the drug companies are putting more money into TREATMENTS then they are tying to cure people. There is no money in curing them only in the treatments.
I used to be a teacher, but I blame the educational system for the glut of kids on ADHD meds. When they realized that kids with actual ADD or ADHD were calmer on those drugs, they started to see any sign of a kid being active, outgoing, goofing off as "this kid is inattentive and/or hyperactive" and they started putting kids through this mill of school testing, getting parents on board, drugging the child to improve classroom behavior, etc.
It's lazy teaching, really.
None of that is the fault of pharma. Some kids are actually ADD or ADHD and they do very well on meds for it during school hours/homework time.
And some of these kids are just bored because they are smarter than their teachers. I encounter teachers all the time who cannot spell or use bad grammar. I recently took a college class, on line, where the teacher's grammar and spelling was so poor, he was hard to understand. And he had a doctorate.
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