Beware Drug-Pushing Professional Scientists

ed2hands

Here's a statement:

Big Pharmaceutical companies have created many good medicines but they also conspire to make masses of money by pushing dangerous and unnecessary drugs to mankind.

Would love to hear from anyone on their views about this at some stage with opinions or info. Peace!;)

Here's a link to some stats on Big Pharma:
http://bipolarblast.wordpress.com/2010/06/13/just-for-fun-disturbing-stats-on-big-pharma/


And a most interesting documentary on this subject of some of players in the industry:

(full version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDlH9sV0lHU)

Part 1: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKYAmg5giAE)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKYAmg5giAE

Jeboa Safari

I don't think they intentionally push dangerous drugs, look at any cases where people have died, it costs the company billions, leads to recalls and damages their reputation. Look at Elan.
There are some drugs though that seem unnecessary, where people would be better off just sorting out their lifestyle

robtri

I wouldnt say they push them unnecessarily on people..

people are lazy....

for example.. they are over weight.. instead of looking at their lifestyle and diet.... they want a pill... so companies provide them.. dont blame the company .... blame the people

hooradiation

ed2hands wrote: »

Here's a statement:

Big Pharmaceutical companies have created many good medicines but they also conspire to make masses of money by pushing dangerous and unnecessary drugs to mankind.

There are two accusations here

1] That Pharmaceutical companies are intentionally selling dangerous drugs.

For this I'd like to know what do you mean by dangerous?
Drugs often have side effects and within the percentage of people who suffer from side effects then those side effects can be dangerous to them but this is different to the drug itself being dangerous.
I mean, to certain people penicillin is dangerous but does that then make penicillin itself dangerous?

2] That Pharmaceutical companies are intentionally selling unnecessary drugs.

I think there might be some truth to this, in a way. But it's worth noting that it is illegal to sell prescription drugs directly to consumers or patients in the EU (unlike the horrible state of affairs in the US) so the problem here isn't so much that they're being pushed directly, more that some people have made the association of "a pill for every ill" into a reality. That said, I don't think it's unreasonable for people to go to the doctors and expect something to make them better. After all being ill is miserable and nobody wants to have to deal with it.

Speaking of - I don't know if you've been in a doctors surgery recently, but they've been pushing the whole "if you have a cold antibiotics won't do anything, stop asking" message. Which is a good thing but only came about after ages of doctors prescribing broad spectrum antibiotics to people with colds simply because they wouldn't accept that bed rest and lots of fluids was the only thing that they could reasonably prescribe.
Now, personally, i see that as a failing of the doctor in question to put his or her foot down and tell these people to go swivel, but at the same time i can understand the urge to just give them *something* to shut them up. People are awful cranky and insufferable at times, sick people doubly so and doctors are only human.

I guess that while I'm thankful that we have laws to stop the kind of advertising of pharmaceuticals that is prevalent in America, the situation here isn't perfect either. But it could be a hell of a lot worse.
I'd be all kinds of worried if the laws on direct to consumer advertising were ever relaxed though.

jh79

Big Pharmaceutical companies have created many good medicines but they also conspire to make masses of money by pushing dangerous and unnecessary drugs to mankind.

Agree with the post above.

What about un-proven treatments flogged by alternative medicine bunch, you say in other treads that you don't agree with clinical trials for herbs etc is it not double standards-ok to make money from herbs etc by making unreleastic promises?

Before you say that herbs etc have history behind them etc, i got a sty in my eye when I was younger my mother made me stick a thorn in it and say 2 hail mary's (hope this is common old wives tale) Old wives tales mean very little

Which is worse a pharm company over stating the clinical benefit of a drug without any real risk to the patient or someone selling collodial silver or some other bull to a sick desperate person?

jh79

The some stats on pharma link

Real cost of drugs:

Doesn't take into consideration the R&D cost, the 20 year patent etc. The cost of all the drugs that fail to make it to the market are recovered through the ones that do. Remember 500million can be spent on R&D. Marketing cost would push this figure up but the drug would have to be approved first

Top 10 companies make 56billion, assuming that true does that not seem a bit low considering prozac has a mark up of 225,000% according to the bit above it. Apple made 14 billion by the way in 2010.

Me too drugs- are these orphan drugs? Again "beware amateur scientists". Sounds good but slight alteration can have a huge effect.
For example thalidomide, left and right isomers (exact same structure different orientation) one of those did all the damage
Speed and cyrstal meth-differ by only a methly group -ch3

Generic section- yes they are cheaper because they didn't have to spend R&D money. If the generic market share increases people will stop R&D

Marketing- well after years of research and 500million of course your going to aggressively market it. This is a non issue.

Buy their research from uni etc- its generally a mixture most of the big one would have their own research centres that have contacts with uni's. This point seems out of place with the rest of this piece. Surely its a good thing. Anyways the expensive bit is not the discovery but the clinical trials. This shows that the science behind most drugs is sound, the preliminary results must have been good enough to interest the big boys.

Over-exaggerate conditions-its true but thats for the consumer to decide. I personally don't see the need for headache tablets but lots do.

The Stanford Guy: Need to look him up

Treatments rather than cures: Its a business decision I suppose shareholders and all that. But if one company has the insulin market cornered why wouldn't another company invent a cure for diabetes and make a fortune for themselves if its so easy? Seeng as type ii is on the rise a cure would still make a fortune. Not as blackand white as you think.

Does the fact that this poster thing is such a one sided propaganda piece not raise your suspicsion on its integrity, You need to be as critical with the pieces that support your beliefs as the ones that don't.

Intersted to know your opinions on cell therapy?

jh79

Again the poster stats thing in the OP:

The guy from Stanford works with stem cells according to wiki I'm assuming the supposed cures are based around this. Early days in this field and Bush didn't help. Problem with stem cells is getting a consistent dose regulators insist on this . N o conspiracy here the technology just isn't fully developed yet.. i think

@ed2hands

I know you don't rate GM food and monsanto , but this cell based therapy that the poster suggest is being suppressed, would be in a similar field utilising the same techniques and principles..would you be agaisnt stem cell therapy ?

jh79

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/b4vf4n

The link in the OP doesn't mention any of this

ed2hands

jh79 wrote: »

@ed2hands

I know you don't rate GM food and monsanto , but this cell based therapy that the poster suggest is being suppressed, would be in a similar field utilising the same techniques and principles..would you be agaisnt stem cell therapy ?

Now. So far you've referenced my views on herbal remedies and GM food. Had a quick scan throught what you've wrote today. Just want to reply to Hooradiation first and will get back to you asap starting with your first post up there. Shant be long.

ed2hands

hooradiation wrote: »

There are two accusations here

1] That Pharmaceutical companies are intentionally selling dangerous drugs.

For this I'd like to know what do you mean by dangerous?
Drugs often have side effects and within the percentage of people who suffer from side effects then those side effects can be dangerous to them but this is different to the drug itself being dangerous.
I mean, to certain people penicillin is dangerous but does that then make penicillin itself dangerous?

Sorry for the short reply at the moment Hooradiation. Good points by the way. Just off the bat, dangerous for me would be some psychoactive and sedative drugs for instance, and the fact that they are prescribed for long periods and to toddlers. Am not for a second saying that some psyciatric conditions don't exist or that some people that suffer from them don't require medication. Am more or less of the opinion that in the context of the wholesale over-prescribing of powerful and potentially dangerous substances to people that don't need them, it's dangerous.

hooradiation wrote: »

2] That Pharmaceutical companies are intentionally selling unnecessary drugs.

I think there might be some truth to this, in a way. But it's worth noting that it is illegal to sell prescription drugs directly to consumers or patients in the EU (unlike the horrible state of affairs in the US) so the problem here isn't so much that they're being pushed directly, more that some people have made the association of "a pill for every ill" into a reality. That said, I don't think it's unreasonable for people to go to the doctors and expect something to make them better. After all being ill is miserable and nobody wants to have to deal with it.

Speaking of - I don't know if you've been in a doctors surgery recently, but they've been pushing the whole "if you have a cold antibiotics won't do anything, stop asking" message. Which is a good thing but only came about after ages of doctors prescribing broad spectrum antibiotics to people with colds simply because they wouldn't accept that bed rest and lots of fluids was the only thing that they could reasonably prescribe.
Now, personally, i see that as a failing of the doctor in question to put his or her foot down and tell these people to go swivel, but at the same time i can understand the urge to just give them *something* to shut them up. People are awful cranky and insufferable at times, sick people doubly so and doctors are only human.

I guess that while I'm thankful that we have laws to stop the kind of advertising of pharmaceuticals that is prevalent in America, the situation here isn't perfect either. But it could be a hell of a lot worse.
I'd be all kinds of worried if the laws on direct to consumer advertising were ever relaxed though.

Oh yes so would i. Yeah it's some consolation at least that US practices are not over here, but it's not for want of trying i'd imagine. And it's true that doctors are only human. They get it from both sides; from the demands of patients and from the marketing ploys of pharma. They get bombarded with this even before leaving college apparently. It seems the whole system is the issue. To put it simply and ask a rhetorical question, "Big Pharma" are corporations who profit on the sale of their drugs. The more they sell the better for them. Why would they want to focus solely on curing people, or preventing illness?

ed2hands

jh79 wrote: »

What about un-proven treatments flogged by alternative medicine bunch, you say in other treads that you don't agree with clinical trials for herbs etc is it not double standards-ok to make money from herbs etc by making unreleastic promises?

I made my personal views on clinical trials for herbs ABUNTANTLY clear on your other beautiful thread. Please do not assume that i have any interest in going into all that again ala KM with you, either on that thread or on this one. I'd much rather you give YOUR actual opinion a bit more than "Agree with the post above" than speculating as to to my shortcomings in applying standards. I see now that you have done so will give it a read in due time. If you ever refer to me as a "CTer" again though, i won't be responding or probably even reading what you have to say full stop.:) Not that that bothers you i gather. Clear?

jh79 wrote: »

Before you say that herbs etc have history behind them etc, i got a sty in my eye when I was younger my mother made me stick a thorn in it and say 2 hail mary's (hope this is common old wives tale) Old wives tales mean very little

Before i say? Oh please. Think i'll say a hail mary or two myself.

jh79 wrote: »

Which is worse a pharm company over stating the clinical benefit of a drug without any real risk to the patient or someone selling collodial silver or some other bull to a sick desperate person?

Please refer to my above comment. And it would be just terrific if you didn't pick up the bad habit of asking me loaded questions to try and paint me into a corner.

jh79

@ed2hands,

sorry about the CT'er thing still learning the forum etuiquette (and spelling)

About refering to other threads, they are all linked so its hard not to over lap.

That link to "stats about big pharma" what your opinions on the info they present?

jh79

@ed2hands,

You shouldn't take things so much to heart, its only a discussion.

Mine and your threads are overlapping and its hard to reply,

Anyways, i don't disagree about Ritalin its the use of toxicity to lambast it i don't like. It might be appropriate in some cases but not to the extent in the US.

Its the mis-representation of science by all sides i don't like. Big pharma has its faults but the fudging of science like in the OP link is wrong also.

Did that guy in stanford discover a cure for diabetes and breast cancer?
When saying me-too drugs have only minor alteration why not also say that in some cases this could mean a significant change in affect ? It not exactly balanced.

Do you agree with the stats on big pharma thing?

On the organic food thing, natural pesticides just as toxic as synthetic so why not just tell people that and let them decide if its then worth the extra expense.

ed2hands

jh79 wrote: »

Apple made 14 billion by the way in 2010.

Good for them.

jh79 wrote: »

Again "beware amateur scientists".

Again, beware Drug-Pushing Professional Scientists.

jh79 wrote: »

Marketing- well after years of research and 500million of course your going to aggressively market it. This is a non issue.

It's an issue to me any road, especially if the thing they're marketing is poisonous ****e to people and kids that don't even need it.

jh79 wrote: »

Anyways the expensive bit is not the discovery but the clinical trials.

Correctamundo.

jh79 wrote: »

This shows that the science behind most drugs is sound, the preliminary results must have been good enough to interest the big boys.

There's science and there's ethics. That statement was a sweeping generalisation which i don't really understand fully to be honest. What do you mean by "the science behind most drugs is sound"? Can you elaborate please.

jh79 wrote: »

I personally don't see the need for headache tablets but lots do.

In fairness, we're not really talking about just headache tablets are we?
Your opinions on massive over-prescribing of other stronger drugs is what would be interesting to me.

jh79 wrote: »

Its a business decision I suppose shareholders and all that.

Hole in one! Good shot old chap.

jh79 wrote: »

Does the fact that this poster thing is such a one sided propaganda piece not raise your suspicsion on its integrity, You need to be as critical with the pieces that support your beliefs as the ones that don't.

Thanks for that piece of advice. The fact that you're pointing out that it's a "one-sided propaganda piece" has absolutely no bearing on the peoples stories and facts it presents. In this instance, it's a cop out to suggest otherwise. You can question it's integrity all you like, but would prefer if you gave me your opinions on the very real situation it portrays ie Big Pharma plainly push dangerous and unnecessary chemical gargage to people and children.

jh79 wrote: »

Intersted to know your opinions on cell therapy?

Couldn't possibly give you those as i know hardly anything about it.

And thanks for the sciency bits in your post. Am not ignoring them, just haven't a notion what some of it means:pac: so will leave them there for the moment.

ed2hands

No probs jh79. I can be a complete arsehole when i get up on my soapbox;)
You obviously know more than i and look forward to your important contributions.

jh79

You obviously know more than i and look forward to your important contributions.[/QUOTE]

Are you being sarcastic? I'll assume not. I find stuff i say in my head doesn't seem to translate well on screen so i find it hard to tell.

Anyways, big pharma will maximise their profits at every opportunity like any other business. They have misled people but that stats link you gave is also misleading.

In summary IMO the ethics of some companies is suspect but it doesn't mean chemicals are sh*t/dangerous etc by default judge each on its own merit (thats my bug bear not the relative ethics of pharma companies, ritalin is a hot topic its wheter it is needed, not thats its a toxic form of speed, thats the issue) and the anti big pharma movement will mis-represent scientific fact or quote out of context to further their agenda as highlighted by that "stats on big pharma link".

ed2hands

jh79 wrote: »

You obviously know more than i and look forward to your important contributions.

Are you being sarcastic? I'll assume not. I find stuff i say in my head doesn't seem to translate well on screen so i find it hard to tell.

No was sincere about that.

jh79 wrote: »

Anyways, big pharma will maximise their profits at every opportunity like any other business. They have misled people but that stats link you gave is also misleading.

The differences for me though with big pharma maximising their profits and some other type of business maximising their profits are huge. It's not an excuse to poison the public as am sure you'd agree. We seem to be both biased to some degree on this so maybe it's something that we'll always differ in opinion about.

jh79 wrote: »

the anti big pharma movement will mis-represent scientific fact or quote out of context to further their agenda as highlighted by that "stats on big pharma link".

Yes they will do this no doubt. Just to say though am not personally a member of this movement. Most people who oppose what we're discussing wouldn't be either i'd imagine.
Am just coming at this from the facts of the matter and the theme of the OP which are pretty well established IMO. Anyway cheers for the info and sure would be interested to know what you dig up on that Stanford guy and for anything else you want to add. Can't obviously discuss too much of the science of chemicals or answer your question about stem cell therapy, but feel free to knock yourself out if you have a point to make with them regarding the OP. Am all ears as they say. Peace!;)

ed2hands

Evil ways of the drug companies

"In the UK, the pharmaceutical trade is the third most profitable activity after finance and - this will surprise you if you live here - tourism. We spend £7bn a year on pharmaceutical drugs, and 80% of that goes on patented drugs - medicines released in the last 10 years. In 2002, the 10 US drug companies on the Fortune 500 list had combined international sales of $217bn (£106.6bn).

They spent only 14% of that money on research and development, but 31% on marketing and administration. They are very careful not to let anyone see how much goes on marketing and on administration. Whenever you hear the drug companies explaining why they have to charge so much for their products - perhaps as they are denying their lifesaving Aids drugs to the 20 million HIV-positive people in Africa - the plea is that they need money to develop new drugs. That's not true if they spend twice as much on marketing as on research and development. This unhappy collision of facts makes them look very evil indeed.

They also charge this money in slightly evil ways. Drugs have 10 years "on patent." Loratadine is an effective antihistamine drug that does not cause drowsiness. Before the patent ran out, the price of this drug, by Schering-Plough, was raised 13 times in the US in just five years, increasing by over 50%. This is not a price rise in keeping with inflation. This is evil.

But it's also an industry in trouble. The golden age of medicine has creaked to a halt, and the number of new drugs being registered has dwindled from 50 a year in the 1990s to about 20 now. At the same time, the number of "me-too" drugs has risen, making up to half of all new drugs.

Me-too drugs are an inevitable function of research driven by a market: they are rough copies of drugs made by another company, but they are different enough for a manufacturer to claim its own patent.
They need to be tested and marketed just like a new drug; but for all that effort they generally don't represent a significant breakthrough in human health. They are merely a breakthrough in making money. Again, you have to admit, that is reasonably evil"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/aug/04/sciencenews

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh99CN5tLrc

Full movie Big Bucks Big Pharma: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=739609197405993027

Recent article in New Scientist: Bipolar kids: Victims of the 'madness industry'?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028151.900-bipolar-kids-victims-of-the-madness-industry.html

Torakx

Its my personal oppinion that pharma corps have taken over our health professions education.
The government supplements unemployed peoples health benefits by paying for them to go to the doctor.
But theres a catch in all this!
I can only get drugs from a doctor,not medecines i need.
The medicine i need happens to be a herbal anti fungal treatment and pro-biotics which a doctor will not prescribe.
So even the government only supplements me if i use pharma corps products and i must pay if i want something that will heal me safely and naturally.

I wouldnt go near a doctor, because they have ruined and i mean ruined to nearly a point of no return my health.
Through irresponsible use of anti-biotics,anti-depressants and other drugs to counter nervous disorders,caused by the anit-biotics.
All of my issues where caused by misuse and no information on the after effects of anti biotics.
I was then mistreated for many differnet ailements that followed and it went in a spiral until i was so sick i was hardly able to stand and i dare say if i had gone along with them on the next stage with an endoscopy i would be under chemo therapy now.
As it stands i did my own research on the symptoms and found the answer.I went on a restricted diet and was functioning normally within 2 weeks.
So twelves years of being sick and all i needed was to stop going to doctors and diet for 2 weeks.
This major issue i have is that a doctor would never prescribe my diet in any of those cases.They would refer me to drugs to address symptoms.

The reason they refer me to drugs is because they have been miseducated or its one big conspiracy which i dont believe is possible,alot of them seem very nice and want to help.But they are all very very misguided i fear.
These are the drug pushing scientists who need to take a real hard look at what they are doing and all the people they are inadvertantly making sick by prescribing unneccesary drugs when a healthy diet or fasting may be required instead.
But who profits from a healthy diet or fasting? Only the patient,so i wont expect much change there.
I see lots of people i can cure with a prescribed diet and i am not medically trained,yet i can and have seen amazing results.

If my kidneys explode yes i will see doctor because i dont have the know how or tools to operate on myself.
But as for diagnoses if i can do it myself without their help i will do so every time.
Im happy to say i am heathlier and fitter than i ever was in the past 12 years,no thanks to drug pushers.

Regarding tests and trials i dont hold much faith in them.
We all know results can be looked at in a way that shows the outcome you want.Or can be done in a way to do so.
My opinion is stay at natural as possible.Research and learn what your body does and doesnt need and live without medcations from drug companies.
This is not medical advice(only my oppinion) and because of people fearing conspiracies to sue i will say always seek medical advice from an expert

ps,to grammar nazi's.Yes alot of typo's my keyboard is glitchy and i type like im dyslexic even though im not lol

tony 2 tone

ed2hands wrote: »

Evil ways of the drug companies

You left out a bit.

But what really interests me is what we do with our feelings about this evil, market-driven venality, which can be found in every market sector. But we find it uniquely distressing when we are sick and needing healthcare.

This moral discomfort and resentment leaks out in delusional anti-MMR beliefs, or bizarre acts of faith in the vitamin pill industry, as acts of misguided and wasteful political rebellion. Why? Because everybody is a socialist when it comes to healthcare, but nobody knows what to do with those feelings any more.

ed2hands

tony 2 tone wrote: »

You left out a bit.

Yea i left it out coz it was nothing to do with the OP.

It was Goldacre doing what he is sometimes wont to do, which is putting forward his correct views on Pharma, but then "in the interest of balance" he also takes the opportunity to beat the "alternative crowd" with a stick. Now please tell me Tony 2 tone what the hell anti-MMR beliefs have to do with what the main article was about.
I'll tell you what i think.
Nothing, absolutely nothing.

He just didn't have the balls or maybe didn't have permission from the editor to stick to what he was talking about instead of getting cheap digs into "the vitamin pill industry" as he puts it.

hooradiation

Sorry for the long delay, was kinda busy of late.

ed2hands wrote: »

Just off the bat, dangerous for me would be some psychoactive and sedative drugs for instance, and the fact that they are prescribed for long periods and to toddlers.

That is a pretty wide set of criteria, if you don't mind me saying - for example psychoactive drugs in reality cover a wide variety of substances, inducing such mundane things as coca and caffeine.
Can I take it you mean the more controversial and well known drugs like Ritalin or did you have anything else in mind?

ed2hands wrote: »

Am not for a second saying that some psychiatric conditions don't exist or that some people that suffer from them don't require medication. Am more or less of the opinion that in the context of the wholesale over-prescribing of powerful and potentially dangerous substances to people that don't need them, it's dangerous.

Well, there's a bit of an issue there - first we'd have to actually know if there is a genuine over prescription of medication, particularly of the ones you've described as dangerous.
Sadly, I'm not sure where you'd find such information - my best googling returns opinion pieces over anything substantive. If you have any information on this it'd be very welcome but I have a feeling that this might literally come down to personal perception - I don't believe that doctors are over prescribing 'dangerous' medicines simply because in contrast to the examples of antibiotics for colds there is much higher risk attached.
That said, I really have nothing much to base that on, it's simply that in the absence of evidence to the contrary I'm willing to trust that doctors know what the hell they're doing.

ed2hands wrote: »

Oh yes so would i. Yeah it's some consolation at least that US practices are not over here, but it's not for want of trying i'd imagine.

I was thinking on this recently enough - I'm not sure that they'd be pushing for direct marketing in europe given how big socalised medicine is in Europe in comparison to the states. I'd imagine they'd be content to court agencies like the NHS rather than try to sell to the public. Certainly a better ROI i'd imagine.
While this might alarm people, I'd consider it the lesser of two evils - If i had to pick between pharmaceutical companies markets direct to the public who have, in general, no medical knowledge and cannot make a truly informed decision and pharmaceutical companies dealing with people who, by rights, have the necessary background and training to make an informed decision, i'd opt for the latter over the former.

And as an aside, i was googling Ritalin as per earlier in the conversation and i came across the list of side effects as listed on the NHS website - contrast this with the "list as many side effects as you can in fifteen seconds" approach that typifies American pharmaceutical advertising and i know which I'd prefer.

ed2hands wrote: »

And it's true that doctors are only human. They get it from both sides; from the demands of patients and from the marketing ploys of pharma. They get bombarded with this even before leaving college apparently.

Well this does tie in with the above - when i was leaving university my year was courted by several big companies to sell us on the advantages of using their products over anyone else's. Now, not that i would ever compare my work to that of a doctor, but the principle is widely similar. While they were effectively advertising to us they were also advertising to people who had enough knowledge to be able to understand what was being marketed and to ask the pertinent questions.

ed2hands wrote: »

It seems the whole system is the issue. To put it simply and ask a rhetorical question, "Big Pharma" are corporations who profit on the sale of their drugs. The more they sell the better for them. Why would they want to focus solely on curing people, or preventing illness?

Your right, it seems that any cure would run counter to the most basic tenet of business - to make money.
And yet, we have cures and vaccines for many diseases which is at odds of the idea of perpetual management of symptoms being more profitable than outright cure.

Honestly, I think that if we could magic a purely philanthropic pharmaceutical industry into existence, dedicated to nothing but the curing and eradication of disease, there'd still more than enough money to be made from symptom management given the diseases that mutate so fast that 'cures' are worthless. The common cold is one that springs to mind.

It's not that i believe that pharmaceutical companies are another other than amoral - they're no different to any other company - but i think that it's unlikely that they'd need to actively fail to create cures in order to maintain a margin of symptom treatments given how efficient life itself is at constantly throwing a spanner in the works when it comes to our efforts to cure sickness.

ed2hands

hooradiation wrote: »

That is a pretty wide set of criteria, if you don't mind me saying - for example psychoactive drugs in reality cover a wide variety of substances, inducing such mundane things as coca and caffeine.
Can I take it you mean the more controversial and well known drugs like Ritalin or did you have anything else in mind?

Oh sorry yes that's what i meant. Ritalin, Prozac, Paxil etc etc rather than caffeine. The ones that are produced, marketed and sold en masse for massive profits to people including small children who are diagnosed as having ADHD, being bipolar, being depressed or have trouble sleeping or get nervous at speaking engagements etc etc etc.
Apparently there are now 374 different so-called mental disorders listed. It seems to me that some of these "disorders" are not disorders but quite normal emotional responses to modern life.

hooradiation wrote: »

Well, there's a bit of an issue there - first we'd have to actually know if there is a genuine over prescription of medication, particularly of the ones you've described as dangerous.
Sadly, I'm not sure where you'd find such information - my best googling returns opinion pieces over anything substantive. If you have any information on this it'd be very welcome but I have a feeling that this might literally come down to personal perception - I don't believe that doctors are over prescribing 'dangerous' medicines simply because in contrast to the examples of antibiotics for colds there is much higher risk attached.
That said, I really have nothing much to base that on, it's simply that in the absence of evidence to the contrary I'm willing to trust that doctors know what the hell they're doing.

Granted it comes down to personal perception. Hear what you're saying. Will keep an eye out for a credible source of stats to look at. My definition of dangerous in this context is sort of compared to not taking it. So even if some of the serious side effects or dangers are rare (most are not), it's all potentially dangerous.
It's a widely held view that side-effects are downplayed by all concerned. It goes back to what you said about the TV ads giving it 15 seconds at the end to list some of them. This 15 second side-effects segment is now normalised in the US viewers mind, like when you hear the bit at the end of financial products ads that says "The value of your investment can go down as well as up, Regulated by Central bank...blah blah..." People i suspect zone out to that part when it's used in all financial ads. Same thing then with Pharma ads. The viewer won't pay due attention. These marketing guys are very very clever.

Leaving aside the many horrible side-effects, the long-term "maintenance" aspect of these medications of course exacerbates the problem, but of course it suits the producers down to the ground. Cha-ching!
Often what is prescribed for the short-term turns into years and a lifetime, because of very little oversight. Torakx said it all for me. Many are extremely habit-forming (addictive). So, many people that didn't have much wrong with them in the first place become drug addicts and slaves to the profiteering industry that claims to have their best interests at heart. Saying that, of course there are those who genuinely require these products and benefit from them. These substances given to people who don't need them is absolutely shocking though.

So how do we tell the difference? Well that's for the doctors and psychiatrists to work out but half of them just want to write you a script and shove you out the door without monitoring or even bothering to tell you the side effects or even for instance also sending you to a nutritionist. Doctors know **** all about nutrition but they should, so the whole system is ****ed if you ask me, excuse my French. Modern processed food is to blame for a lot of this but sure that's for another day. And i personally don't buy into that "oh people are lazy" bull**** or "it's buyer beware; they demand it so that's why we produce it". Society should be protected from this IMO but it's not being adequately. There's other bigger tin-foiley matters on this that come into play as regards the big scheme of things in my view. Will slap them on the table at some stage.

It's a big scam and is facilitated by deregulation, lax standards and the fact that Pharma and the psychiatric/medical industry seem to be joined at the hip in regard to over-medicating (drug pushing). In the US it's the worst as you said. Who's to say that Europe and the rest wont go the same way at some stage soon? Those spineless Eurocrats are under fierce pressure am sure from the very powerful Pharma lobby. I have no proof of this obviously just speculation.

Down the road we could be seeing ads on TV with shiny happy people dancing around in a park and a deep soothing voice comes over telling us "You could be shiny and happy too if you take this lovely rather expensive concoction we have cleverly invented just for YOU". Never mind that it only MIGHT reduce your symptoms compared to a placebo, or fill your brain and organs with stuff that's not really supposed to be in there.

Then there's the older people in society. Again they're targeted by marketing in the US and many seem to be over-prescribed with shopping list of god knows what. Again to stress that many need these for genuine pain and genuine reasons etc. And yes i know it's easy to say all this being relatively healthy. Surely some of these products though are even more dangerous when taken together. Are some of these combinations properly clinically tested? I doubt it. Costs too much money to do that anyway and we all know how hard-pressed Big Pharma is to scrape an existence...


Hope you got time to watch "Making a Killing" in the OP.
It's an interesting doc in spite of the fact it's schmaltzy and was financed by loonies. (but even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day:))

Di0genes

ed2hands wrote: »

Hope you got time to watch "Making a Killing" in the OP.
It's an interesting doc in spite of the fact it's schmaltzy and was financed by loonies. (but even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day:))

It's a scientology documentary why don't you just say "it's funded by people with a specific anti psychology and anti pharma psychology agenda."


As to your other point

Evil ways of the drug companies

"In the UK, the pharmaceutical trade is the third most profitable activity after finance and - this will surprise you if you live here - tourism. We spend £7bn a year on pharmaceutical drugs, and 80% of that goes on patented drugs - medicines released in the last 10 years. In 2002, the 10 US drug companies on the Fortune 500 list had combined international sales of $217bn (£106.6bn).

They spent only 14% of that money on research and development, but 31% on marketing and administration.

You consistently say they spend twice as much money on marketing than R&D, but ignore the fact that the figure is for both Marketing and Administration.

How much is their pure marketing budget? Any large company is going to have a huge administration department. Accounts, HR, Procurement, Delivery, Catering and so forth, A huge Pharmaceuticals company is going to have a tremendously large administration budget.

So lets not pretend their budget for selling drugs is twice as much as developing drugs. Lets see a honest breakdown of their Marketing budget itself, rather than lumping marketing in with administration.

ed2hands

Di0genes wrote: »

It's a scientology documentary why don't you just say "it's funded by people with a specific anti psychology and anti pharma psychology agenda."


As to your other point



You consistently say they spend twice as much money on marketing than R&D, but ignore the fact that the figure is for both Marketing and Administration.

How much is their pure marketing budget? Any large company is going to have a huge administration department. Accounts, HR, Procurement, Delivery, Catering and so forth, A huge Pharmaceuticals company is going to have a tremendously large administration budget.

So lets not pretend their budget for selling drugs is twice as much as developing drugs. Lets see a honest breakdown of their Marketing budget itself, rather than lumping marketing in with administration.

:rolleyes:

Most large companies don't poison the **** out of large swathes of the population either.

Chow down on these stats:
http://www.blacklistednews.com/50_U.S._Health_Care_Statistics_That_Will_Absolutely_Astonish_You_/14466/0/0/0/Y/M.html

Oh but boo hoo! They're from a biased site so they COULDN'T be true so won't be considering them at all!!:)

clever_name

ed2hands wrote: »

:rolleyes:

Oh but boo hoo! They're from a biased site so they COULDN'T be true so won't be considering them at all!!:)

Cool thanks for saving me the time reading!

Di0genes

ed2hands wrote: »

:rolleyes:

Most large companies don't poison the **** out of large swathes of the population either.

Thats a non sequitur.

Please explain how much pharmaceutical companies actually spend on Marketing as it doesn't seem to be the same as twice as much on money on marketing as on R&D

Chow down on these stats:
http://www.blacklistednews.com/50_U.S._Health_Care_Statistics_That_Will_Absolutely_Astonish_You_/14466/0/0/0/Y/M.html

Thats about health insurance not pharmaceutical companies.

Oh but boo hoo! They're from a biased site so they COULDN'T be true so won't be considering them at all!!:)

Well this is about trusting scientologists. do you take scientologists word on pharmaceutical companies? If you do, I've got a personality test you should try.

ed2hands

Di0genes wrote: »

Please explain how much pharmaceutical companies actually spend on Marketing as it doesn't seem to be the same as twice as much on money on marketing as on R&D

It's a well used and oft quoted statistic. Not that that makes it accurate indeed. Possibly the figures vary in reality and possibly you're correct in that the marketing spend in any given year is not quite twice as much. Here's a site that backs up your claim:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080105140107.htm

Di0genes wrote: »

Well this is about trusting scientologists. do you take scientologists word on pharmaceutical companies? If you do, I've got a personality test you should try.

:pac:No i don't take their word on anything but was prepared to look at the vid with an open mind regardless of source. Some of pharma's own self-produced and self-financed stats, tests and figures IMO are the ones to be taken with a pinch.

tony 2 tone

ed2hands wrote: »

Yea i left it out coz it was nothing to do with the OP.

It was Goldacre doing what he is sometimes wont to do, which is putting forward his correct views on Pharma, but then "in the interest of balance" he also takes the opportunity to beat the "alternative crowd" with a stick. Now please tell me Tony 2 tone what the hell anti-MMR beliefs have to do with what the main article was about.
I'll tell you what i think.
Nothing, absolutely nothing.

The bit you left out were also his views, as you don't agree with them and because they give a negative view of the anti-big pharma people(some of them any way)
It is relevent, if people feel strongly about the issues their time and effort would be better spent campaigning against them(or for industry change) than the rabid anti-MMR sentiment, advocating the comsumption of large doses of vitamins or other such acts.
There can be hundreds of youtube videos made but it won't make a difference unless some thing is done in the real world.

Di0genes

ed2hands wrote: »

It's a well used and oft quoted statistic. Not that that makes it accurate indeed. Possibly the figures vary in reality and possibly you're correct in that the marketing spend in any given year is not quite twice as much. Here's a site that backs up your claim:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080105140107.htm

Thank you.

:pac:No i don't take their word on anything but was prepared to look at the vid with an open mind regardless of source. Some of pharma's own self-produced and self-financed stats, tests and figures IMO are the ones to be taken with a pinch.

So you'll look at a scientologist video with a open mind, but will be suspicious of the industry that creates antibotics and antiretroviral drugs.

Right. Okay.

hooradiation

ed2hands wrote: »

Oh sorry yes that's what i meant. Ritalin, Prozac, Paxil etc etc rather than caffeine. The ones that are produced, marketed and sold en masse for massive profits...

Fair enough, though I feel I should mention that i believe that making a profit is not, in and of itself, evidence of guilt or wrongdoing.

ed2hands wrote: »

...to people including small children who are diagnosed as having ADHD, being bipolar, being depressed or have trouble sleeping or get nervous at speaking engagements etc etc etc.
Apparently there are now 374 different so-called mental disorders listed. It seems to me that some of these "disorders" are not disorders but quite normal emotional responses to modern life.

Well, there's a couple of things here - firstly is the prescription of psychoactive drugs to children always a bad thing?
This might look weird on first glance, but the very concept of children and medicines is one that is, for a lot of people, one that's highly emotionally charged. And while it's understandable I'm not sure it's helpful.

I don't know if it's because people have a habit of idolizing the idea of childhood innocence and that mental disorders and the treatment thereof seem to run contrary to that, or if it's something else.
But regardless of the why, I'm not sure that uniformly going "children oughtn't to be given <substance X>" is any wiser than going tot he other extreme of using medicine as the port of first resort.

Secondly - One of the criticisms of the DSM is that there is a question of the reliability and validity of it's diagnosis - but i wouldn't be so quick to say that some of these listed disorders are, in fact, not. Would you have any specific ones in mind when you say that?

ed2hands wrote: »

Granted it comes down to personal perception. Hear what you're saying. Will keep an eye out for a credible source of stats to look at. My definition of dangerous in this context is sort of compared to not taking it. So even if some of the serious side effects or dangers are rare (most are not), it's all potentially dangerous.

Sadly, life is a pretty risky business. For example, the chances of dying in a road accident of any sort is somewhere in and around 1 in 84, yet this does not stop people from driving, walking near roads, getting on public transport etc. Do you think that the criteria you have for dangerous may be a little too broad?

ed2hands wrote: »

So how do we tell the difference? Well that's for the doctors and psychiatrists to work out but half of them just want to write you a script and shove you out the door without monitoring or even bothering to tell you the side effects or even for instance also sending you to a nutritionist.

That's a very harsh generalisation of doctors and psychiatrists and I'm not sure it's one that i can believe in.

ed2hands wrote: »

Doctors know **** all about nutrition but they should, so the whole system is ****ed if you ask me, excuse my French.

Well, there are dietitians, but they are specialists (and rightly so given the scope of the the subject matter) so they're simply not available for constant consulting.
I mean, it'd be nice that GP's had greater knowledge in a lot of specialist areas - dermatology would be one I'd personally request - but they're only human. However we do have constant general nutritional advice (five a day, etc) but frankly as someone who's probably going to have to see a dietitian soon with regards to having to make a massive dietary change, I'm glad they are specialists and available for this kind of thing and not tied up with telling people to eat their damned vegetables.

All that said, I'd rather that the term nutritionist was brought under the same protected status as dietitian, simply because people use and understand the terms interchangeably but only one is actually protected.

ed2hands wrote: »

It's a big scam and is facilitated by deregulation, lax standards and the fact that Pharma and the psychiatric/medical industry seem to be joined at the hip in regard to over-medicating (drug pushing).

Well, we're still at the stage of it being a matter of opinion that over-medicating is as rampant as you believe it to be, but i am not surprised that
the pharmacutical industry and the medical service one are closely linked - in fact I'd be alarmed if they weren't.

Whatever about the opportunity for the current climate to produce improper relations, if pharmaceutical companies were making medicines and then not talking to the people who prescribe them and see the results day in, day out I'd be far more worried about their motives and the effectiveness of their products.