Iron_Chef said:
I hate the pharmaceutical commercials for all those damn pills, with glossed over side effects like "liver failure, death and/or diarrehea." But in particular, I hate the new commercial that has people saying defeatist comments like: "I don't want to be a famous artist, I just want to hold a paintbrush with less pain" --- which translates in my mind as "I want to be a loser who doesn't stick it out from the crowd and never does anything with my life." IMO, if you pick up a paintbrush, you should have aspirations to be a great at painting (not necessarily museum great, but good enough to sell your work if you wanted) or else you really have no business even lifting that brush at all. Go do something else you could be great at... Why people are willing to accept mediocrity for themselves and their loved ones is beyond me when there is clearly a choice.
These kinds of commercials are dangerous, because they brainwash people into thinking they're losers and damn lucky just to be able to take a stupid, overpriced pill that may cripple or kill them because it hasn't been tested properly, and the side effects not adequately revealed to them beforehand. Those drug companies spend billions marketing their crap every year and a drug commercial is on TV every 60 seconds. Doctors are in on the conspiracy to mass-medicate the public, too. They get bribes from the drug companies to push certain pills on their patients. What you are prescribe from one doctor to another for the same symptoms could differ greatly, depending on which drug company's pocket each doctor is in. The drug companies figure it's cheaper to settle lawsuits from victims of their products than spend a few extra years testing them --- it's better for their stockholders to get it out quick... screw the poor suckers that actually take the damn drug. And have you noticed that there are no new cures coming out? That's because there's no money in cures for the drug companies --- everything is about "symptom management"! So you're stuck taking their stupid, dangerous pills the rest of your life if you catch something. And they're making up new diseases like "nervous anxiety disorder" so they can get doctors to prescribe their pills more for conditions that may not warrant medication. Their goal is to get the world hooked on their (legal) drugs and damn the consequences. Plus, they are price-fixing in the US and lobbying to limit Americans access to their (lower-priced) pills shipped in from other countries. It's a national travesty.
Well, as someone who works for one of these pharmaceutical companies, I will say that I don't like many of these commercials myself, but I can't say I hold with much of the rest of this rant.
It's easy to rant about these medications, unles you happen to be one of the people who really need them. My company makes one of the drugs that "let someone hold a paintbrush pain free." I can tell you from people I know who have arthritis and use these drugs that they really do change their lives for the better. Perhaps they do not now feel they need to be the next Michaelangelo, but they appreciate the ability to do things that you and I take for granted.
As for cures versus "symptom management," I can tell you that there is plenty of research going on to try and find cures, but it is not a simple thing. Most of the diseases and disorders that need cures are extremely complex, often the mechanism for disease is not well understood, and when it is it is often a genetic basis. We have found many cures for infectious diseases because once you eradicate the infectious agent, you have cured the problem. Some cancers have had effective treatments devised because in many cases it is a limited number of cells that have gone haywire. Eliminate those cells and you have cured the cancer. Of course those people get monitored for years because if it happens to you once, it is possible you may have a genetic propensity for cancer - they cannot cure that yet. Let's see, arthritis, MS, lupus and many other diseases are your own immune system attacking your body. Nobody has figured out how to fix it because nobody really understands why it starts in the first place. Outside of the brain, the real workings of the immune system are one of the biggest unknowns in the human body. Speaking of the brain, once again the brain is not understood well enough to know how to "fix" things. So, what does all this mean? We can at least make things better by treating the symptoms. Oh, but that is just the pharma companies trying to steal your money.
OK, let's see: you want "cures" to be found (trust me, so do the majority of researchers at these companies), but that takes money to conduct the research. Where do the companies get the money to do research? From sales of their products. No sales = no research. Why does a pill that has about $1 worth of actual ingredients cost $30? Well, its that research again. For every product that gets onto the market, an average of 9 other products failed in their clinical trials. Those trials cost a lot of money, and I hate to say it, but businesses need to recoup those costs or else they will no longer be there to do any research or clinical trials. So if you really want there to be cures for more diseases one day, be glad that there are drugs being sold that do make people better and earn money for the companies that do research.
If your wonder why we pay so much more for drugs in the US than in other countries, its all about price controls. Other countries have them, the US does not. If the US joins the bandwagon and imposes price controls, our drugs will be cheaper, but the pace of new discoveries will slow dramatically since the US market generates a huge amount of the money spent on research and development. Less $ = less research.
I guess I'm tired of everyone always slamming the pharma companies. For some reason, because people need these medications, unless the companies give the stuff away to everyone, they are seen as heartless money-grubbing evil companies. I'm not saying that the people who run these companies are wonderful humanitarians who only have the best interest of the people at heart, but they are not out to purposely screw the people either. The people at the top are trying to build and run their businesses, and they hope that things their company makes will continue to make the life and health of people better. Its no different than most other companies out there.
Sorry for the lengthy post...we now return you to your typical lighthearted discussions.
