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No. It is consumer pressure that tends to keep companies honest. How many people really know about the science behind the drugs they take? The FDA is also heavily biased towards profitable drugs not useful ones because it is the producer that must fund the FDA approval. Stevia really opened my eyes to how it work. Vioxx was prescribed over aspirin in my opinion, just because....
We buy more and more products we really don't understand fully.
Doctors and drug salesmen used to be a large factor in the over-prescribing problem. I believe it was HIPPA that changed the doctor/pharma relationship....hopefully for the better.
For many years I've felt like Cunucu Beach, no new drugs for me, anything I do take at all must have a proven positive track record.
I see that almost everyone here is clear that pharmaceutical companies don't have our best interest in mind, but for those who seem to think it's "a given", well, you apparently haven't encountered people who put all their faith in the meds their doctors prescribe.
That may have been OK 30 years ago when people established a trusting relationship with a doctor and they had more time to read medical journals, but thanks to all the insurance stuff doctors have to see more patients these days and the 5 min. visits we get hardly qualify as a basis for trust. I for one was shocked when my pharmacist told me years ago that doctors were offered all kinds of perks for recommending drugs, especially new ones, so the least scrupulous doctors will push those that have offered them the better benefits. I particularly remember a young doctor about 10 years ago whom I actually liked, who wanted to put me on high blood pressure medication, luckily when I went back to see him my reading was much lower, then he was close to prescribing something to lower my blood sugar when my test was a little high, but I also reduced it through diet, then because I had some bone loss he wanted me to take Fosamax but I refused, and boy am I glad because it turned out to be another bad one.
Another example are statins which have been prescribed right and left but they cause extensive muscle damage and have even left some people paralyzed. Just last year I had a roommate who I think was taking Lipitor and she complained all the time of terrible pain and swelling in her arms and hands, she cared for small children but some days she could hardly pick up the little ones or open jars, etc., she's a very active person so that was pretty devastating for her. Then I received an e-mail from a contact about the danger of statin drugs and I had a hunch that was her problem and told her so. She decided to stop it and almost immediately her pain went away, luckily it was not too late for her because the greatest irony of this is that since the heart is a muscle over time it's going to get damaged just like the arms or legs so many of the people taking the drug may have or could end up having a heart attack actually because of the drug.
I suffered a side effect that is not advertised. Hair loss. If you dig a little, sure enough it is a side effect of taking statins. Within 3 months of taking a statin I lost most of my mustache, developed multiple bald spots on the back of my head, lost most of the hair on my legs. I stopped the statin, all the hair grew back gray. Told my doctor about it and he agreed that it is a side effect because he had another patient with the same issue. I also suffered a severe abdominal pain once that I never experienced before. Happened once only, not sure if there's a connection or not.
It sounds like Big Pharma is similar to Big Oil.....both seem to get paid more for producing less.
Scarcity is the source of profit, not production. Production will reap the rewards for that scarcity it is true, but it actually will tend to work against the producers as a whole. However, if a cartel can be formed, the best profits are made with scarcity and price discrimination. If no such cartel forms, then no "economic profit" can be made. Typically it only supports over head and wages, including those of superintendence, at that point.
You contradict yourself. All living things on Earth are created by Nature, and for anything that "goes wrong" nature has provided a cure.
Doctors and researchers are living things, created by nature. Over 90% of all pharmaceuticals come from nature, created by living things created by nature (people); only around 10% are completely synthetic with no natural basis.
So - people have developed cures and treatments for illness. People are made by nature, and the cures and treatments are made by nature.
Therefore, there is nothing wrong, according to your dogma, with people who make cures and treatments. And therefore, according to your dogma, you have no problem at all with pharmaceutical companies, which are run by nature-created people, creating pharmaeuticals, of which 90% or more are derived from nature.
By natural or nature I refer to that which is UNALTERED. For instance, yes Valium comes from Valerian, but Valerian contains components that work synergistically with the organism in a way that the drug cannot. This seems to be a concept that modern medicine cannot grasp. Nothing in nature needs to be ALTERED to be effective. But you cannot make a profit on boneset herb, or echinasea or ginseng or goldenseal because you cannot patent it. And so, some pharmaceutical company decides to take the active ingredient and separate it from the other components, or worse, synthesize it, as in Marinol, and put it in a pill and charge people hundreds of dollars. And then it ends up not only NOT WORKING, but actually HURTING the people who take it because it is no longer as nature intended.
the biggest problem isnt the drug companies, the drugs themselves, or the doctors that prescribe the drugs. the real problem is the patients who just take the drugs and dont tell their doctors about any side effects they are having.
when i got out of the hospital in 2007, they put me on actos for my diabetes. things were fine for the first couple of months, but then i started getting severe edema. when i went to my primary care doctor, they took me off the actos, and with in a week or so my edema started subsiding.
i talk to my doctors anytime i have a reaction to medications they prescribe for me.
the biggest problem isnt the drug companies, the drugs themselves, or the doctors that prescribe the drugs. the real problem is the patients who just take the drugs and dont tell their doctors about any side effects they are having.
when i got out of the hospital in 2007, they put me on actos for my diabetes. things were fine for the first couple of months, but then i started getting severe edema. when i went to my primary care doctor, they took me off the actos, and with in a week or so my edema started subsiding.
i talk to my doctors anytime i have a reaction to medications they prescribe for me.
....and people that live brutally unhealthy lifestyles and then want a magic pill to fix everything. My sibling sees this every day in their work as a phys. therapist.
People that are 100lbs overweight and are sick....duh.
By natural or nature I refer to that which is UNALTERED. For instance, yes Valium comes from Valerian, but Valerian contains components that work synergistically with the organism in a way that the drug cannot. This seems to be a concept that modern medicine cannot grasp. Nothing in nature needs to be ALTERED to be effective. But you cannot make a profit on boneset herb, or echinasea or ginseng or goldenseal because you cannot patent it. And so, some pharmaceutical company decides to take the active ingredient and separate it from the other components, or worse, synthesize it, as in Marinol, and put it in a pill and charge people hundreds of dollars. And then it ends up not only NOT WORKING, but actually HURTING the people who take it because it is no longer as nature intended.
That's what I meant.
And you know it.
20yrsinBranson
You most certainly can make a profit on ginseng or echinacea and goldenseal. You simply put sawdust and drried rye grass in the capsule instead of the actual herb you're claiming is in there. And since there is no regulation on supplements, you can charge whatever the ignorant masses are willing to pay, to take something LABELLED as one thing, but containing something entirely different.
Or - you can grow the herbs in your own herb garden, and raise your own vegetable/fruit/grain crops and farm animals yourself. That is the ONLY way you can be assured of what you are putting into your body.
You most certainly can make a profit on ginseng or echinacea and goldenseal. You simply put sawdust and drried rye grass in the capsule instead of the actual herb you're claiming is in there. And since there is no regulation on supplements, you can charge whatever the ignorant masses are willing to pay, to take something LABELLED as one thing, but containing something entirely different.
Or - you can grow the herbs in your own herb garden, and raise your own vegetable/fruit/grain crops and farm animals yourself. That is the ONLY way you can be assured of what you are putting into your body.
There are laws against false labeling. The supplement industry is not as tightly regulated as the pharmaceutical industry but it does not have free rein to put dessicated cow poop into a capsule and call it "predigested alfalfa".
My concern is not Big Pharma. My concern is the United States Government.
Your concern should be a bit of both: the corporate domination of the US gov't.
Pharma controls the medical education in the US. (I've spoken to doctors who admit this.) This is why doctors are unable to treat chronic illness. The US has top ratings internationally for emergency and catastrophic care, but lags behind many developing countries in treatment of chronic health problems. This is because in medical school, doctors are taught mainly to prescribe pharma for illness, not to trouble-shoot and get at the root cause of illness. If any of you have had friends with chronic illness, you know what it's like. The WHO rates health care in the US #26 among nations, just behind Costa Rica, and one notch above Slovenia. The influence of Pharma on the US medical education and the med system overall has a lot to do with this.
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