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Archives | (July 2002)
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THE RISING TIDE OF PRESCRIPTION DRUG COSTS:
A CORPORATE CON JOB (cont.)
------------------------------------------------------------------ Page 4 of 6 While this may be a blessing for “Big Pharma,” it may be a curse for the patients. Most cholesterol-lowering drugs are from the so-called “statin” family. Roughly 25% of all individuals taking statin drugs experience some degree of side effects – many of them serious. Among the most common are muscle weakness (sometimes quite pronounced) or cramps and muscle degeneration. But more serious side effects including liver or kidney failure are also possible. As a result, individuals on statin drugs are required to take liver function tests on a regular basis. Moreover, they will have to do so for the rest of their lives, since as a general rule, once a patient is placed on cholesterol-lowering drugs, they remain on them forever. But what if a doctor doesn’t want to subject a patient with marginally high cholesterol levels to the risks statin drugs pose? They really don’t have a choice! The guidelines say drugs are appropriate if the level is above 200, so at 201 you get medication whether you and your doctor think you need it or not! If the doctor doesn’t write the prescription, he literally is in danger of losing his license! It’s not just in regard to cholesterol levels that “Big Pharma” and Big Medicine” have been able to manipulate standards. Think for a moment about the “obesity epidemic” you hear so much about. According to the “experts”81% – that’s right, 81% of Americans are overweight! This is up from 58% just a little more than a decade ago. How could this be? Have we all spent the last ten years pigging out on McDonald’s? Worse, fully one third of us are defined as obese! If you think something must be wrong – you’re right. The alarms about obesity are based in the notion that four out of five Americans have a body mass index (BMI) above 25, indicating that they are overweight. What they don’t tell you, however, is that a few years back, they changed the chart, moving the acceptable body mass to a lower point. With this one stroke of the pen millions of Americans who were considered within a healthy weight range were suddenly ! Suddenly they needed special counseling, doctors supervision and, of course, weight loss drugs like Fen-Phen or now, Meridian. The other thing they fail to acknowledge is that BMI is not a reliable measure of actual body fat. For example, heavily muscled individuals, such as body builders, have high BMIs because muscle weighs more than fat. People who are large-boned can also have a higher than average BMI. Also, genetics play a role. Some people naturally have more body fat than others, and live perfectly healthy normal lives. This information of course doesn’t sell prescription drugs or other medical services, so you’ll seldom hear it mentioned. As with cholesterol levels, however, if doctors fail to act to treat “obese” patients may be violating standards of practice and leaving themselves open to liability. But it isn’t just licensing boards and regulatory agencies that put pressure on doctors to write prescriptions. As mentioned earlier, it’s often the patients themselves who pressure doctors in response to the proliferation of medical advertising. AN AD BLITZKRIEGIf it seems like every time you turn on the TV you see a new drug ad, you may be right. Since the FDA first permitted so-called “Direct to Consumer” or “DTC” advertising by pharmaceutical firms, spending on ads to push pills has skyrocketed, rising from $1.1 billion in 1997 to $2.8 billion last year! Of that amount, roughly 60% or almost $1.7 billion was spent on television ads. When you look at some of the most heavily promoted drugs, the extent of the effort becomes clear. |
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