Essentially 3 things – official boundaries of illness are being widened. Marketing strategies - increasingly the healthy are being targeted. normal everyday ailments are being sold as something that needs medication . Medical establishment corrupted by drug companies lubricating the docs and even the legislatures.
more than ½ of FDA funded by drug companies.
Pharm. co’s are ‘branding’ illnesses to widen their pool of consumers
Prologue - using our fear to sell, parents fear of youth suicide, our fear of early death, and woman’s fear of heart attack/menopause. Yet the meds prescribes appear to increase the symptoms they are prescribed for.
Industry sponsored efforts do not educate us, they skew to ill-inform us.
average American sees 10 ads for Meds everyday.
disease mongering is an essential part of the drug industry.
10 conditions in book
3 examples – #1 social anxiety disorder – 1% of population is effected according to legitimate studies, 13% according to Pharm. co’s. 1 in 8 people supposedly.
They’ve attempted to blur the boundaries between ordinary shyness and real disorder.
It’s a great way to get new markets is have your drug approved for other illnesses.
Pharm. co’s created fake grassroots campaign (astro-turfing) now common tool in PR houses.
created fake coalition (patients, doctors, scientists) with advertising, all funded by drug company to link social anxiety with Paxel. Campaign was so effective that they bragged about it publicly. A guy named Ricky Williams was contracted by drug co to push these campaigns, went on talk shows etc. ****Mother Jones article on this -
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2002/07/disorders.html#2 PMDD – premenstrual dysphoric disorder is still a controversial condition. Many researchers say it’s just a normal condition of life, not an “Illness”. Eli Lily – Prozac was dieing and they needed new markets for it. They sponsored a roundtable and published a paper before researchers even decided it was a real disorder. Their money seriously skewed the info that we got.
Seraphim prescribed for PMDD was just repackaged Prozac!
******”A Drug by any Other Name”
http://depression.about.com/cs/hormones/a/sarafem.htm#3 The clearest example of a “created disease” – we are living thru it right now. Female Sexual Dysfunction. Erectile dysfunction had made them a fortune. Why not?
“By the way, this book is about the marketing of the drugs, not the actual drugs so much.”
Pharm. co’s attend scientific conferences and meetings – his estimate is 50% of the people there are from drug co’s.
In the late 90’s the first conference ‘report’ that acknowledged Female Sexual Dysfunction was published. A small Med. journal published the paper which said 43% of women have this problem. 18 of 19 authors of papers about FSD have ties to drug co’s.
Book has been out for a month in Australia – not one fact has been challenged by drug co’s. they seem to have lost their tongues.
Common sexual difficulties being seen as a medical conditions so the drug co’s can sell their products to a larger population.
For British medical journal he wrote “The making of a disease: female sexual dysfunction’ got lots of good reviews worldwide. Women’s groups started getting emails from a PR group that suggested they should try and help debunk him. They promptly forwarded it to him, and he called the PR firm that wrote the letter, they denied it, he says letter is right in front of me, “well, so yes, we did” – He traced it to Pfizer – this was within a week or two of his article. He approached Pfizer in an email and asked them if they had done this, “yes. we did. Standard business practice.” For him, that was the scariest part of the whole thing.
Women’s groups and med groups are fighting this
No Free Lunch – health care providers -- physicians, pharmacists, nurses, dentists, among others -- who believe that pharmaceutical promotion should not guide clinical practice, and that over-zealous promotional practices can lead to bad patient care. It is our goal to encourage health care practitioners to provide high quality care based on unbiased evidence rather than on biased pharmaceutical promotion.
http://www.nofreelunch.org/aboutus.htm 50,000 med students group pledge to not take money or perks from drug co’s, not to work as paid speakers, etc.
It’s time that these panels riddled with conflicts of interests be removed from the process.
Q and A
Q – If the doc says I need to take blood pressure or cholesterol drug how do I know if he is telling me the truth?
A - biggest question of all and scariest for most people – may be subject of my next book, but I don’t have an answer yet.
Q – rambles mostly about people who need these meds, are you suggesting they are not sick?
A – book in now way denies these conditions exist, says Pharm industry is perverting the info and the need.
Q – med. equip co’s are also pushing their products this way.
A – yes, there’s even an ongoing federal lawsuit now looking at connections.
Q – Symptom of a broader and deeper trend – we are living in this vast denial that everything is a biological disorder, finding this as a reason for all issues, and you can take a pill to make it all better.
A – Yes, and there is an interesting contradiction in what they are doing, narrowing of illness symptoms, yet broadening of consumer base at same time.
*** Another good Mother Jones article on this mentions this book –
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2005/07/selling_sickness.htmlPDX DU’rs! MeetUp TONIGHT at the Lucky Lab :party:
– thread here -
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=174x2534