New, new, new! Does it work? Who cares!
When I was a kid, I had a friend who always wanted the newest, hottest toy. Didn't matter how many toys she already had. Didn't matter if the newest was actually more fun. Or less fun. What mattered was that it was NEW.
Last year's -- heck, even last week's -- model was relegated to the corner, gathering dust. No matter how much fun she'd had playing with it, it didn't matter anymore.
For her, it was all about novelty. Who else is all about novelty?
You guessed it -- Big Pharma.
Right now, there are more than 30 blood pressure drugs on the market. Thirty. Which one's the best? Well -- we don't know. But we can tell you about the brand new one coming down the pike.
Will it be better than the slew of drugs already out there? Who knows? But it's NEW!
A recent study of, well, drug studies, shows that only 32% of drug studies published in major medical journals answer which of the available medications for a particular condition (and for which patients) is best and safest. And only 11% of the studies compare drugs to a non-medication alternative (like diet or exercise). A mere 19% focused on drug safety.
Most of the studies aren't about finding the best of what's already out there, or about finding out how to make the best even better. No, they're about drugs in development, or pitting drugs against no treatment or placebo.
Most of the studies are also funded by...do I even have to write it?...Big Pharma.
Which available drug works best seems like a pretty basic question, right? But it's not one that the Big Pharma giants are particularly interested in answering.
Well, gee...I wonder why?
As long as the health industry is focused on cold hard cash -- as long as they can buy off the generic makers to eliminate competition -- as long as they can fake trial results (at the risk of how many lives?) to ensure the only news about a drug is good news -- as long as it's about raking in billions of dollars to become Big Pharma top dog -- this is going to be a problem.
I'm not suggesting, of course, that the pharmaceutical industry shouldn't make money. Money makes the world go 'round, as they say. But when making that money comes from risking the health and lives of so many people -- well, something's got to give.
Plus -- I mean, come on -- 30 blood pressure drugs? I think we could stand to wipe a couple off the market, especially considering the risks associated with many of these drugs. Put the money into figuring out which drugs are best for those who really need them, and throw out the rest.
The proof is there. Cover-ups have been uncovered, and now we have confirmation that all of the money being poured into drug research isn't really doing us, the people, much good -- it's not getting us the BEST treatment, just the latest.
We have the evidence -- question now is, what do we do with it? The researchers who conducted this study say that, for the focus of drug studies to change, it's pretty simple (but not easy) -- the funding needs to come from somewhere other than Big Pharma.
Sounds like a great start to me.
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Christine O'Brien writes the e-letter Health eTips for Dr. Wright's Nutrition and Healing.
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Comments
Detox Foot Pads
I am so against big pharma. I wouldn't be so upset if everyone else in this country actually understood the damage they were causing, and only used pharmaceuticals in life or death situations... but it seems like everyone else is just ignorant, or they choose to look the other way intentionally. What that means is that the rest of us will foot the bill when they are too sick to pay for themselves anymore. We have to take charge of our own health, and start to pay attention to what we put into our bodies.
Anonymous
One can always prove the cause of high blood pressure rightly or wrongly to be caused by sugar. If one really wants to know.
Sugar causes salt to be retained and salt causes fluid to be retained SO of course we can get rid of high blood pressure
Alexandru
I agree with Detox Foot Pads .. very good "speech"
Anonymous
I feel the government make work health care research center should be kept busy and out of mischief by having them design and run ALL clinical trials. The federal government should need maybe six months maybe one year notice that a big pharma company wants to introduce a new drug. Then the federal government should buy the first few months output of the new drug enough to run a trial. The trial should pit the new drug against the most commonly used old drug for the same indication, a placebo, and at least two preferably all the remedies recommended by the alternative health community for that same indication. Since there is tremendous individual variation in human response to drugs, the research center people need to look for subsets within the group of people with indication matching that of the new drug who respond better or worse to each of the items being tested against each other. If there is at least some subset of patients for whom the new drug does more good than harm, it should be listed on the new electronic health care record system with whatever information is available about both its benefits and its risks of adverse side effects. In any case the big pharma company with the new drug should be given a contract if the winner of the trial is the new drug, an older drug by the same company still under patent, an old drug with an expired patent, or an unpatentable natural remedy to produce enough of the winner to treat Medicaid, TRICARE,and VA patients with matching indication. Medicare patients actually using Medicare Part D to buy the drug should have to buy the Big Pharma version. Medicare patients with low enough drug bills to pay Part D premiums as a fig leaf in case they need the insurance some future year should be allowed to buy a generic version (if it is not under patent).
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