I have spent some time this morning thinking about Don Mikulecky's diary on the falling status of American health.
The problems are made manifest, to me, in a breaking news story from a law suit against the makers of Vytorin. It seems that Vytorin may be a trigger for cancer. (Reported on CNBC and Bloomberg for it's effect on the market, the story is not up yet.)
Viagra can cause heart attack, or stroke. Various treatments for osteoporosis can increase bone weakness. Your asthma drug can ruin your liver, and nearly every Big Pharm hyper-marketed compound puts unrelated organs and systems at risk for fatal side effects.
We are paying billions of dollars a year to treat real, and imagined, physical defects at the risk of dying, and many physicians, and insurance companies, are paid to play within this arena of systematic harm.
Before I go any farther, let us remember two caveats:
- If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
- No professional is free from blinders when doing research in their field.
It is the stated goal of Pharma to discover, or create, drugs that tackle the problems of human health. During the past 100 years individuals, dedicated to this lofty motive, have beaten back Infantile Paralysis, Small Pox, and a host of bacterial and viral diseases that killed, or incapacitated, hundreds of million of people.
Modern disease research, developed and conducted mainly in Europe and the United States, has been largely responsible for prolonging the life span and increasing the quality of life for several generations. But somewhere along the line things have gone haywire.
As the complexity of the research increased, it became clear that more funding was needed. Funding for equipment, staff, and the chrome and stainless steel geegaws that technology could provide. But, rather than realize that human health was a topic of interest to nations, our government stepped back and let the "free market" step in. They quickly did. There was, after all, profit to be made.
And, there were increasingly high expenses to be met.
Enter the Marketing Executive. The case was made that selling these newly discovered drugs was more important than researching them. It was promoted as good for share holders, good for CEOs, and "good for the public", if everyone was aware of what drugs are available, and how they can be acquired.
And even more important, from a marketing point of view, identifying new diseases and peddling drugs to address these new found pots of gold, became a driving force in the market.
They now direct all of their research to the niche markets, created by marketing research. They "build a better mouse trap" and the world of patients and physician rushes to the door to imbibe multiple drugs to treat forms of illness that humans, through out history, have considered an annoyance, at worst.
And billions are spent in advertising these drugs, convincing Americans that they have newly minted "diseases" that will "respond" to these concoctions.
When we fold in the extraordinary costs associated with delivering American Health care, the clear abuse of medications that maim, and can even kill, and the turf fights over generic drugs, is it any wonder that we find ourselves on a downward glide in life span and general health? And what, exactly, might be our complicity in this marketing system that can kill us?
They may not be trying to kill us. But it's clear that the entire system is badly broken and innocent Americans, trusting their physicians and drug manufacturers, are long overdue in questioning a system that pours toxic substances down their gullet to the profit of Big Pharma.
Update: MSNBC has the results of the drug trial up, but not the court case, as yet.