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Big pharma by Herb Ruhs, MD, June 19, 2005 I am really sympathetic with folks who fall for the big pharma "marketing/propaganda" product. Hard to imagine any other group that spends so much money on a systematic program of hoodwinking us rubes, or makes off with more loot doing it. Included in the "rubes" category are most of the physicians I talk with. The presumption that the "ethical drug industry" (the official title of this industry, I am not making this up) must be up to some good is hard for people to shake, especially if their perceived personal welfare depends on one or more of its products. Makes a reasonable reading of the facts way difficult. Mostly what I say to people who try to argue in favor of the drug industries activities is to read The Truth about the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do about It, by Marcia Angell. It seems that people are more ready to believe that politicians and generals are lying than to believe that the companies that they feel they depend on for their health are playing a whole host of confidence games, with patients and doctors alike, and are using government agencies to cover up scams that we think these agencies are busy protecting us from. Scares me too. Read the book. The depth and breadth of misinformation and outright lies perpetrated by big pharma is such that it does boggle the mind. I just read through 6 pages of citations by Google News on this issue looking for something sensible on this pseudo story. Even I am stunned. Wall to wall ignorance and cluelessness. Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. Only in one citation in one paragraph was any caution or reflection demonstrated. "More worrisome, bioethicists warn that greenlighting a drug for only one race sets a dangerous precedent. 'This can fuel social conceptions that there are meaningful genetic differences between races,' says Jonathan D. Kahn, assistant professor of law at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn."And that was in BusinessWeek! Sometimes I feel like there really isn't any point to this madness we indulge in. The public mind is shattered isn't it? We are just beating a dead horse here, aren't we? Public perception might as well be pickled in formaldehyde. Later in the article, "Studies have shown that hypertension drugs called ACE inhibitors (a different family from the "Black" drug) are less effective in black patients than in other groups." OK, the set up, now for the killing blow. Drugs marketed only to white people. Aaaarrrrrrggggghhhhh! (Stage Direction: Speaker runs off stage left pulling at his hair and shaking his head in heedless flight.) LINK Herb Ruhs, MD
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