The Newest Drug Company Mantra

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http://www.mercola.com/2005/nov/26/the_newest_drug_company_mantra.htm

 

 

The Newest Drug Company Mantra

 

 

In an article in the LA Times, Greg Critser discusses the reasons

behind the plummeting profits of the pharmaceutical industry. Drug

company officials have offered up reasons such as generic competition,

overzealous regulators, trial lawyers, bad public relations and the

high cost of research.

 

Neither Safe Nor Effective

 

Critser proposes a different reason: the pills they offer are neither

safe nor effective. He points out that, according to the industry

itself, only about half of the new medicines launched since 1990 are

significant improvements over older and cheaper products.

 

At the same time, problems from side effects are on the rise,

especially now that one in six Americans take three or more

prescription drugs daily, often in untested combinations

 

The result? Only about half of patients stay on any given regimen.

 

" Persistence and Compliance "

 

The industry's response, however, has been to increase efforts to

promote " persistence and compliance " -- in other words, ways to keep a

patient taking pills, even if the patient doesn't like it.

 

Few Programs Look at Side Effects

 

The rise of P & C programs mean that huge amounts of money are spent

getting people to ingest pills, and less and less is being spent to

discover new ones.

 

Meanwhile, patients may be encouraged to continue taking a drug that

can be harmful, and few P & C programs even bother to look at the

reasons patients might stop taking pills, such as side effects,

adverse events and special individual sensitivities.

 

Los Angeles Times November 20, 2005

 

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

 

You may be familiar with Greg Critser from his book Fat Land, which I

reviewed two years ago. Now he's focused his energy on the

conventional and fatally flawed health care paradigm once again in his

newest book, Generation Rx.

 

It isn't bad enough that the drug companies spend billions on

direct-to-consumer advertising to influence you to purchase drugs, but

they also spend an average of over $10,000 EVERY year on EVERY

physician in the United States to brainwash them to the same

conclusion. That is over $16 billion every year.

 

Persistence and compliance programs are the new evil tools that the

multinational drug companies are now using to deceive you.

Superficially they sound like something that is really serving you,

but nothing could be further from the truth -- its primary purpose is

to increase their bottom line far more than your health.

 

These persistence and compliance programs started as joint ventures

between drug companies and HMOs in the form of phone calls or e-mails

from " health counselors " -- better known to the rest of the world as

telemarketers -- to remind you to refill your prescriptions, even when

you don't need to or shouldn't.

 

And who's paying for all that marketing slight-of-hand that's

overmedicating the world? That's right, folks, you are.

 

That said, you can take steps to begin optimizing your health and

lessen your dependence on expensive and potentially toxic drugs today,

with all the free tools available on my Web site. A good place to

start: Learn how you can retool your diet to fight and prevent disease

by eating foods better suited for your body's unique metabolic type

with my free test.

 

Related Articles:

 

Pharmaceutical Facts

 

Spin and the Pharmaceutical Industry: Proudly Protecting Profits

by Scaring You

 

How Pharmaceutical Companies Use Enticement to 'Educate' Physicians