The Trouble with Medicine

Medicine is in trouble. Its costs are burgeoning; its effectiveness lessening. It has become downright dangerous to follow its advice. It seems to have lost its way and has no sense of direction. The expectations of its consumers are increasing and, while attempting to react to those hopes, its treatments are becoming more desperate. One only needs to look at the HRT debacle, the Vioxx scandal or the farce that is cholesterol medication to understand all this. I'm sure that future generations will look with dismay at the way medicine is practiced today. Our ancestors will look upon the medical practices of the last few decades as we do the blood-letting in prior centuries.

Purely and simply, medicine today has one aim: profit, enormous profit. And the goal seems to be to make it as fast as possible. I know this sounds harsh and indeed it is a sweeping generalization. But what I speak of here is a profession that has all but lost its social conscience and forgotten its purpose.

Modern medicine, practicing Newtonian reductionism as it does so single-mindedly, has almost reached a point of being worse than the diseases which it purports to treat. It is well publicized that the third leading cause of death today, right behind cancer and heart disease, is mistakes that happen in hospitals. If statistics were kept and could be analyzed concerning adverse drug and surgical reactions that occur outside hospitals as well as those harmful events stemming from doctor's offices and various clinics, medicine as a whole could very well be the number one cause of death today. Sad, but true.

Ultimately, the real problem with medicine today is that it's all about selling drugs. There seems no other way to describe it. The pharmaceutical industry is a mega-billion dollar business with a firmly entrenched hold over both doctors and hospitals. Drugs are the ‘raison d'etre' of medicine and all it stands for. Without a prescription pad, and a local pharmacy, today's doctors are professionally impotent.

One huge problem with medicine is drug advertising. Recently, drug ads have come under fire, but so far only from those researchers, politicians, teachers and parents with an objective conscience. Drug advertising appears in all manner of print and visual media today, and its influence is both enormously lucrative and frighteningly devious. It has been indisputably observed that the most prescribed drugs are also those most advertised. People demand that their doctors give them the pills that will offer them the lifestyle they've seen on a TV ad. Obscene pharmaceutical profits fund medical journals, university chairs, and much research. Altruistic to be sure, however, this infusion of cash also results in compromise and influence. This influence is turning out to be quite unhealthy for you.

The watchdog of medicine the world over is the Federal Food and Drug Administration in the US, the beloved FDA. Oh, to be sure, each sovereign country has its own organization in place to conduct this vital role, but realistically, they all seem to take their lead from the FDA. In Canada, we have Health Canada and do a credible job of tinkering but it is widely acknowledged that if a Canadian pharmaceutical company wishes to sell a new drug, it would be wise to convince the FDA first. Health Canada will then practically rubber stamp the thing.

Recently, however, serious cracks are showing in the FDA. Numerous allegations have been heard of corruption, lack of objectivity, nepotism, suppression of research that would hurt drug sales and overt motives of caring more for the pharmaceutical industry's welfare than the public's. Not too long ago, the FDA changed its policy and is now allowing pharmaceutical companies to pay some of its administrative expenses. In February of this year, it was revealed that 10 of the 32 members of the key FDA drug advisory panel had been paid to consult for various drug companies. This august body has been castigated from many quarters for its complete failure to fulfill its mandate of protecting the public; instead the FDA seems bent on allowing the market to be flooded by all manner of expensive medications. Often these new medications go through the “Fast Track” policy in which new drugs can be approved based on studies with as few as 200 people. The promise made by the new policy is that these fast-tracked drugs would, after being released, then be subjected to more extensive research, but this follow through simply isn't happening.

Let's face it: there's no such thing as a “safe” drug. All drugs, by their very nature are toxic and all have side-effects. Using the risk/reward ratio, groups like the FDA try to ascertain if the side-effects are tolerable. This makes sense only if the information and data that you have is accurate and honest. Many times, it seems, this is simply not the case. The recent uproar over the drug group called Cox-2 Inhibitors is a case-in-point.

The Cox-2 drug Celebrex was brought to market in the mid-90's and quickly became the most prescribed medication world-wide. After several years it was revealed that the makers shamelessly falsified their testing results. Vioxx is another drug in this Cox-2 category, and I'm sure you all know its history. Suffice it to say that it was pulled from the market because the deaths that would result from its use would be the equivalent of 2-4 full jet liners crashing every week with no survivors. We'd never tolerate that poor a safety record in air travel, so how did we allow it with drugs? It's simple…the FDA is in bed with the drug makers. Only with great reluctance did Vioxx get pulled late last year, and can you believe it…it was re-approved six months later. Only money can pull strings like that.

Author Contact Info: David Phillips D.C.
http://miltonchiropractic.chiroweb.com/