Fwd: [SSRI-Research] Healing corrupted by practices of Big Pharma-Toronto Star

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[sSRI-Research] Healing corrupted by practices of Big Pharma-Toronto

Star

 

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FYI

 

Alan Young is a criminal lawyer and law professor in Toronto who has

been battling for the right of AIDS patients to use marijuana for

medical purposes. He has just had his first child and worries that

the influence of Big Pharma on medicine will be harmful to his

child's health.

 

Young is alarmed by the fact that 3 million Canadian children are

being prescribed antidepressant drugs. In the US, according to the

FDA, 10.8 million children were prescribed an antidepressant in 2002--

of these 2.7 million were younger than 12 and 8.1 million were

adolescents. He recognizes that in many cases doctors and nurses

are " silent co-conspirators in the shady business of pharmaceutically

driven medicine. "

 

Young points out what others have steadfastly avoided mentioning:

" Big Pharma is in the business of sickness and it's in their best

interest to maintain a horde of sick people as consumers. When

medicine is driven by business objectives, the healing perspective

gets skewed. For example, painfully shy people are no longer simple

introverts, but suffer " social anxiety disorder. " Conveniently,

Zoloft is available to cast out the demons of shyness. "

 

Conveniently too, these drugs cause severe drug withdrawal syndrome.

Difficulty stopping results in chronic dependency. Continuous drug

use means increased revenues for Pharma. Young's call to action:

 

" We must reclaim control over our bodies and protect our children

from developing drug dependencies. Instead of pushing little kids to

master fractions, we should be teaching them about the body and basic

preventive medicine. Only by learning how to stay healthy can a young

person achieve a better life without chemistry. "

 

[A follow up Infomail will focus in greater depth on the intricate

ways Big Pharma's influence has shifted the focus of medicine.]

 

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav

Tel: 212-595-8974

e-mail: veracare

 

 

 

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The Toronto Star

Healing corrupted by practices of Big Pharma

Apr. 11, 2004. 01:00 AM

ALAN YOUNG

REASONABLE DOUBT

 

With the birth of my first child this month, I started thinking a lot

about drugs. Not the illicit ones, as one might expect, but the licit

drugs supposedly sustaining the health of our nation. Having a baby

means having a relationship with the health care system, and I don't

necessarily like what I see. For the most part, our doctors and

nurses provide exemplary service, but in many instances they are also

silent co-conspirators in the shady business of pharmaceutically

driven medicine.

 

Just as the pursuit of justice has been corrupted by the pursuit of

money, the art and science of healing has been corrupted by the

aggressive cost-recovery practices of multi-national pharmaceutical

companies. Big Pharma has recently taken quite a beating in the media

and has responded with sappy TV spots applauding themselves for the

vast sums they spend on research and development.

 

Certainly, lives have been saved and suffering alleviated by their

slow and painstaking development of chemical compounds. And certainly

these philanthropic companies have made a good buck fighting

sickness. The real question is whether we have achieved better living

through chemistry.

 

Thinking about the world of licit drugs led me to the concept of

iatrogenic disease - an illness precipitated by medical intervention.

Iatrogenic illness includes medical errors and adverse drug reactions

and American studies demonstrate that iatrogenic disease is the third

leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer.

 

In Canada, studies show 25 per cent of patients who seek medical

treatment end up suffering from another illness brought about by

medical or drug error. It has also been reported that, in Canada, the

cost of inappropriate prescriptions exceeds $2 billion. Doctors

cannot be held to unattainable standards of perfection, but why are

there so many adverse drug reactions when drug companies spend

billions to test these new medications ?

 

As pharmaceutical sales in the world market approach the trillion-

dollar level, the media have uncovered stories of doctors being

bullied into publishing results supportive of a drug's approval and

of doctors being bribed to prescribe new drugs.

 

The drug approval process in Canada is rigorous. If pharmaceutical

companies need to bring a drug to market quickly to offset enormous

research expenditures, they may need to take ethical shortcuts to

enter the market.

 

Health Canada has now issued a warning regarding pediatric use of

antidepressants, but few people knew that drug manufacturers tried to

suppress test results showing that certain antidepressants, including

Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil, were less effective than a placebo in many

cases. With 3 million Canadian children taking antidepressants, the

aggressive marketing practices of the pharmaceutical industry cannot

be dismissed as merely an over-zealous business strategy.

 

Big Pharma is in the business of sickness and it's in their best

interest to maintain a horde of sick people as consumers. When

medicine is driven by business objectives, the healing perspective

gets skewed. For example, painfully shy people are no longer simple

introverts, but suffer " social anxiety disorder. " Conveniently,

Zoloft is available to cast out the demons of shyness.

 

So many lies are told when it comes to control over our bodies. Big

business distorts licit drug development and politics distorts

illicit drug designations. Last week, U.S. and Canadian police shut

down a large ecstasy distribution ring. Ontario's acting chief

coroner said ecstasy is a dangerous drug and " someone can die from

just one dose " . Although far more people die from taking licit drugs,

it is in the interest of politics to demonize any drug not found in

the conventional pharmacopeia.

 

I am not advocating the use of ecstasy. In fact, I think it is

foolhardy for anyone to take synthetic chemicals produced by hairy

bikers or deluded amateur chemists. Nonetheless, research scientists

and doctors are more than willing to make definitive statements about

illicit drug dangers despite the absence of sound empirical evidence.

 

In 2002, a report that single-time ecstasy use caused permanent

neurological damage, inexorably leading to Parkinson's disease, made

front-page news. Quietly, a year later,, the scientists had to issue

a retraction when it was discovered the neurologically damaged lab

rats were actually given another drug mislabeled as ecstasy.

 

North Americans have a huge appetite for legal and illegal drugs. The

pharmaceutical industry should be required to develop an effective

suppressant for this bad habit, but reducing licit drug dependencies

would be bad business. We know little about what we are putting into

our bodies and the interests of business and politics have

regrettably added to the confusion.

 

We must reclaim control over our bodies and protect our children from

developing drug dependencies. Instead of pushing little kids to

master fractions, we should be teaching them about the body and basic

preventive medicine. Only by learning how to stay healthy can a young

person achieve a better life without chemistry.

 

 

Alan Young is a law professor, criminal lawyer and author of Justice

Defiled: Perverts, Potheads, Serial Killers & Lawyers (Key Porter).

 

 

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