Pharmaceutical industry is deceiving doctors while utterly failing to make significant contributions to treating chronic disease

The United States is one of just two countries that still allow pharmaceutical companies to engage in direct-to-consumer advertising of new drugs. In 2020, this scheme amounted to $6.58 billion – money that could be spent on actual medical research. With direct-to-consumer advertising, consumers are encouraged to mask one issue and take on a bunch of new health issues, while being told to “ask their doctor if this drug is right for them.”

Big Pharma has also developed an elaborate system of bribery to manipulate medical professionals into prescribing new drugs. These schemes do not include objective information sharing; they involve the wining-and-dining of doctors, which includes generous financial kickbacks and guaranteed publishing and speaking deals. Sadly, much of Western medicine has devolved into a constant cycle of side effects, adverse reactions and a complete abandonment of the real phytonutrients and medicinal compounds that support the blood, hormones, body systems and organs.

Long-term masking of symptoms is more profitable than understanding and reversing the core health issues

In 1977, Dr. Vernon Colemon wrote an important book about this issue called Paper Doctors. In one chapter, he discusses pharmaceutical research and the drug industry’s inability to develop meaningful advancements for medicine over a twenty-year period. Some of the most important medical advancements were made before the 1950s. Drugs like steroids, insulin and penicillin have helped countless people; however, most drugs created since then have caused more problems than they have solved. Even with massive investments in drug research and with technological advancements that have enabled mass synthesis of coal-tar chemical compounds, much of the pharmaceutical research has merely focused on masking symptoms, instead of getting to the root cause of disease. For the past sixty years, pharmaceutical companies started to focus their research on developing products that have a potential for high sales, while targeting conditions that require long-term treatment.

New drugs are oftentimes just new variations of old drugs, leading to endless ways to profit from basic formulas. These new variations never seem to solve the core issue for most people and become crutches over the long term. There are endless variations of antacids, tranquilizers, sleeping pills and antidepressants, for example. Even back in 1975, doctors could choose from 57 different brands of antacids, but the only difference was the name of the product and the price.

Even with record profits, Big Pharma is failing to treat chronic disease

Basically, over the last sixty years, drug companies have manipulated the scientific process, prioritizing profit over people. This is one of the reasons why America suffers from the greatest level of chronic disease than any other nation in the world. In 1950, only six percent of Americans suffered from a major chronic disease. Today, 60 percent of the population suffers from chronic disease. The cost of treating these chronic diseases is approximately 90 percent of the $4.3 trillion spent annually on healthcare. Approximately 93 percent of Medicare costs and 85 percent of Medicaid costs are for chronic diseases.

Even with thousands of drugs on the market and record profits, Big Pharma isn’t providing the solutions. This has become an unethical and unsustainable paradox. These companies are making money without any significant innovations to medicine and human healing. These companies are lying and bribing their way to the top — a competition of failure and perpetual chronic disease — all while taking the whole country down with them in an economic collapse.

Policy makers argue about the cost of healthcare, and who should pay for it, but there is no discussion on why it costs so much, no effort, no debate on how to reduce the toxic, fraudulent drugs and the system of bribery and deceit that plagues our healthcare system. When will we incentivize a moral and ethical pursuit to treating chronic disease? When will we incentivize the development of medicines that work with the body holistically? When will we provide pharmacies with the plant-based extracts that have been used to heal people for centuries — long before this modern-day corruption of science?

Sources include:

HealthPolicy.usc.edu

Projects.ProPublica.org

Expose-News.com

Youtube.com