![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 12 of 12. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by stan_the_man70 on May 4, 2016, at 9:06:12
---------------------quote reference
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/medical-errors-are-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-us
---------------------end quoteMedical errors are No. 3 killer in U.S., study finds
Medical errors are America's third leading cause of death, behind heart disease and cancer, according to a study released Tuesday. Errors cause at least 250,000 deaths per year, the report said. "People don't just die from heart attacks and bacteria, they die from system-wide failings and poorly coordinated care," said the study's lead author, Dr. Martin Makary of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "It's medical care gone awry." The toll amounts to about 10 percent of U.S. deaths each year. [U.S. News & World Report]http://theweek.com/10things/618922/10-things-need-know-today-may-4-2016
Posted by stan_the_man70 on May 4, 2016, at 11:44:57
In reply to Third leading cause, posted by stan_the_man70 on May 4, 2016, at 9:06:12
------------------------------quote reference
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/americas-pill-popping-making-our-fish-anxious-and-possibly-getting-our-vegetables
------------------------------end quoteAmerica's Pill Popping Is Making Our Fish Anxious and Possibly Getting Into Our Vegetables
There may be an even more costly price to pay for being the world's most overmedicated country.
By Kali Holloway /
AlterNet May 3, 2016
In Americas never-ending pursuit to be number one in all things, it has achieved top billing in a number of troubling areas, including where overmedication is concerned. We are the most pill-popping country on earth, with an astounding 70 percent of us regularly taking one prescription drug and about half of us taking two. A quarter of us take five or more prescription medications, according to the Mayo Clinic, which for the record, is a whole lot.What goes into our bodies ultimately must come out, and thats as true for meds as it is for anything else. Without getting into the elephant in the room (what does it mean when a good portion of the population is taking enough drugs to kill said elephant?), lets turn to another issue. That is, when some of those pharmaceuticals are excretedmeaning peed out by usersthey generally end up in our toilet water. From there, they enter our waterways and recycled water supplies, the latter of which are used to irrigate food crops. Ultimately, new research finds, those drugs can unwittingly be re-absorbed both by humans and by fish who never signed up for a prescription.
A new survey released in March by the University of Jerusalem confirms that crops can bear the fruit, so to speak, of our prescription drug use. Researchers looked specifically at the cycle of carbamazepine, a pharmaceutical anticonvulsant generally used in the treatment of epilepsy that is also ubiquitously detected in reclaimed wastewater, highly persistent in soil, and taken up by crops. According to Science Daily, researchers had subjects eat producetomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and lettuceirrigated with treated wastewater for seven consecutive days. At the end of the week all members of the first group exhibited quantifiable levels of carbamazepine in their urine.
"Treated wastewater-irrigated produce exhibited substantially higher carbamazepine levels than fresh water-irrigated produce," study lead Ora Paltiel, director of the Hebrew University-Hadassah Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine, told Science Daily. It is evident that those who consume produce grown in soil irrigated with treated wastewater increase their exposure to the drug. Though the levels detected were much lower than in patients who consume the drug, it is important to assess the exposure in commercially available produce. This study demonstrates 'proof of concept' that human exposure to pharmaceuticals occurs through ingestion of commercially available produce irrigated with treated wastewater, providing data which could guide policy and risk assessments.
Before you start losing sleep about the drugs youre taking in through the items in your crisper drawer, note that the study group later spent a week eating fresh-water treated crops. Researchers examined the urine again and found that the carbamazepine levels had returned to baseline levels. But Ars Technica points out why these results still deserve further inquiry:
"While the amounts of the drug in produce-eaters pee were [10,000 times lower] than what is seen in the pee of patients purposefully taking the drugs, researchers speculate that the trace amounts could still have health effects in some people, such as those with a genetic sensitivity to the drugs, pregnant women, children, and those who eat a lot of produce, such as vegetarians. And with the growing practice of reclaiming wastewater for crop irrigationparticularly in places that face water shortages such as California, Israel, and Spainthe produce contamination could become more common and more potent, the authors argue."
For fish, the widespread use of mental health drugs is turning out to have not so great collateral consequences. A report from Medco Health Solutions indicated that in 2010, more than 20 percent of American adults were taking antidepressants, antipsychotics, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drugs [or] anti-anxiety medications, up by 22 percent over a decade prior. Another 2014 study found one out of 13 American schoolchildren takes at least one medicine for emotional or behavioral difficulties. Brian Bienkowski, writing at Environmental Health News, notes that about 250 million antidepressant prescriptions are filled each year in the U.S., making antidepressants the countrys most prescribed medications.
While those mood lifters might be helping some Americans cope with their days, they seem mostly to bum fish out. Bienkowski cites a study out of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that looked at the effect of putting low doses (one part per billion) of fluoxetine, more popularly known as Prozac, into water containing male fathead minnows. The result: not good.
"Male minnows exposed to a small dose of the drug in laboratories ignored females. They spent more time under a tile, so their reproduction decreased and they took more time capturing prey... When the dose was increased, but still at levels found in some wastewater, females produced fewer eggs and males became aggressive, killing females in some cases."
"The drugs seem to cause these behavioral problems by scrambling how genes in the fish brains are expressed, or turned on and off. The minnows were exposed when they were a couple of months old and still developing. There appeared to be architectural changes to the young minnows brains."
"The new findings build on [study head and UWM professor Rebecca] Klapers previous research, which tested minnows with the gene changes to see how well they avoided predators. They swam longer distances and made more directional changes, which suggests that the drugs induced anxiety."
As Bienkowski notes, the World Health Organization says the amount of pharmaceuticals in our drinking water exists at levels that are about 1,000 times too low to have any real impact. But for marine animals, taking in antidepressants and other pharmaceuticals is a whole other matter.
Fish do not metabolize drugs like we do, Klaper told Bienkowski. Even if environmental doses arent thought to be much for a human, fish could still have significant accumulation, and, it appears, changes in their brains gene expression.
---------------------------
Kali Holloway is a senior writer and the associate editor of media and culture at AlterNet.
Posted by stan_the_man70 on May 4, 2016, at 11:57:13
In reply to interesting - maybe scary, posted by stan_the_man70 on May 4, 2016, at 11:44:57
------------------------quote reference
http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/it-might-not-be-dementia-how-pharma-seniors-can-go-seriously-wrong
------------------------end quoteIt Might Not Be Dementia
How Pharma for Seniors Can Go Seriously WrongDr. Harry Haroutunian discusses the dangers of overmedicating older adults.
By Martha Rosenberg /
AlterNet
April 19, 2016
Forgetfulness. Falls. Adding a new prescription or over-the-counter drug to address problems that are side effects of a previous drug. These are increasingly common problems, says a new book from Hazelden, because people are taking more drugs than ever before and not always aware of their side effects and interactions. This "polypharmacy" can produce everything from falls and accidents to behavior that is quickly termed dementia in the elderly, even when it is clearly from drug effects.
The problem is compounded by doctors not always aware of what other doctors are prescribing a patient and the addictive nature of many popular drugs today.
I recently interviewed Dr. Harry Haroutunian, whose new book, Not As Prescribed: Recognizing and Facing Alcohol and Drug Misuse in Older Adults, addresses these issues.
Martha Rosenberg: Your book discusses ageism that can lurk behind medical treatment of the elderlythe belief that a person does not have long to live, cannot live a quality life or even that they should be allowed to have their "comfort" when it comes to drugs like opioids or benzodiazapines.Harry Haroutunian: People can do extraordinary things in their 90s. I have a colleague at the Betty Ford Center who has written two books about recovery and speaks in prisons about recovery and addiction at the age of 95. The later years can be more fulfilling than anything before them. I have seen my patients blossom when taken off harmful drugs and drug combinations. If Mom doesn't remember that you visited yesterday or that you rushed over to check on her because her phone went dead, she may not have declining memory issues at all; she may be suffering from drug side effects.
MR: In your book, you recommend a medical audit in which all the drugs a person is taking are put in a paper bag and brought to their primary doctor.
HH: Yes, and that includes over-the-counter drugs like Tylenol PM, Advil PM, Nyquil and anti-diarrheals, which can also cause confusion, memory loss, dry mouth and falls. Every time I go to my cardiologist, he does a medical reconciliation of all the drugs I am taking. If your older adult's doctor is not doing that, find a new doctor.
MR: Don't electronic health records automatically show one of a patient's doctors the drugs the patient's other doctors have prescribed?
HH: Not unless the doctors are in the same health-care system. HIPAA laws would not allow that information.
MR: The biggest problem with drug addiction is denial, and you say in your book the family can also be in denial.
HH: Yes. When it comes to a family member, denial can take the form of "not my mother," "these are prescription drugs" and "this can't be addiction." Remember, for the pre-WWII generation, there was huge shame and stigma around addiction, too.
MR: Another problem you raise is how to help a parent who you are supposed to respect and who once took care of you. It feels awkward.
HH: The key word is nonconfrontational, and being gentle. You can simply say, "Let's have a doctor look at all the medications you take to find out why you are so drowsy or forgetful." The whole family will be pleased, and the decision to admit the elderly person to a nursing home can be put off for years.
MR: You write in your book that drug-taking has become "normalized." What do you think about direct-to-consumer advertising?
HH: It is horrible. It gives people magical thinking and the idea that any problem can be fixed with a drug and there are no consequences regardless of the list of dangerous side effects. The ads allow the patient to feel "smart" by telling the doctor what he heard on TV, and then the doctor has to be smarter in what he chooses to prescribe.
MR: It is clear from your book that medications, not dementia or cognitive problems, may be causing many of the symptoms we see in the elderly, even landing them inappropriately in nursing homes. You are also no fan of opioids for chronic pain.
HH: If you took 100 patients who are on chronic pain medication and take them off the medicine and move them through three physical therapy pool exercises a day, a lot of them are going to feel better. The reason is the opioids are usually causing the pain through opioid-induced hyperalgesia. The patients' light-headedness and over-sedation will also disappear and their bowel functions will return to normal. These are wonderful changes to see.
-------------------------
Martha Rosenberg is an investigative health reporter and the author of "Born With a Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp the Public Health (Random House)."
Posted by stan_the_man70 on May 4, 2016, at 12:08:08
In reply to It Might Not Be Dementia, posted by stan_the_man70 on May 4, 2016, at 11:57:13
---------------------quote reference
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/when-it-comes-addiction-drugs-are-not-really-problem
---------------------end quoteWhen It Comes to Addiction, Drugs Are Not Really the Problem
What do the 1994 Crime Bill and our current heroin scare have in common?
Blaming social and human problems on drugs.By Stanton Peele /
AlterNet
April 29, 2016
Columbia University neuropsychologist Carl Hart has written a bestseller, High Price, comprising two related parts: his research with drugs showing that drugs effects are secondary in relation to the rewards associated with them (pay addicts enough and they quit), and his experience of life in the Miami ghetto, in which the introduction of crack to the community, and cracks ultimate disappearance from it, had no impact on the social depredations pervading that community.
The bottom line of both experiences: drugs are not the problem.
But we never learn that. In fact, we have a government industry led by Nora Volkow, the acclaimed director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, based on the propaganda that drugs are bad (note the term drug abuse in the title of her agency).
For Volkow, drugs change the brain to make people irresponsible and immoral. Ergo, when Volkow and her ilk cure drug addictionthe never-ending yellow brick road extending infintitely into the past and futurewell solve all of our social problems!
Oh, since Volkow was appointed director of the NIDA, in 2003, both heroin and prescription painkiller addiction and death rates have hit record levels. This remarkable achievement was at one time considered impossible, since it was felt that the two narcotic addiction habits substituted for one another, such that a decline in one inevitably produced a rise in the other.
The U.S. government, at its website, crows that Volkows groundbreaking discoveries about the brain have revolutionized our understanding of drug addiction, enabling us to respond effectively to the problem. Meanwhile, Volkow has performed the modern anti-miracle of creating simultaneous painkiller and heroin epidemics!
How did she do it? By explaining that drug use causes people to behave in criminal, antisocial ways no matter the conditions under which they live, to wit:
It is not enough to say that addiction is a chronic brain disease. What we mean by that is something very specific and profound: that because of drug use, a persons brain is no longer able to produce something needed for our functioning and that healthy people take for granted, free will.
Volkow is the anti-Hart. Whereas Hart says drugs are not the problem, Volkow says people's lives are not the problemdrug use and addiction are.Which brings us back to the crack scare, drug predators, and the Clintons.
Remember that Bill Clintons choice for drug czar was general Barry McCaffreyitself a bizarre comment on our countrys century-long insanity about drug use. McCaffrey was anti-medical marijuana, a great D.A.R.E. backer, andalong with Bill and Hillaryhe opposed needle exchange programs. Thus the Clinton administrations policy led to tens of thousands of AIDS deaths among IV drug users.
Meanwhile, the Clinton drug policy excluded those convicted of even marijuana possession from receiving welfare, food stamps, or public housing. The logic: "If you use drugs, youre not a real American. This approach fed into Clintons role in the mass incarceration of African-Americans.
Do you see the pattern yet, a pattern from which we can never seemingly extricate ourselves, no matter how self-destructive the consequences? Yes, the biggest addiction of all is the one the U.S. has with its dysfunctional views of, and policies toward, drugs. This dysfunction, this addiction is, of course, rampant in the current political discourse. Drug use is a disease that only more treatment and scientific cures for addiction can solve!
Do you remember New Jersey Governor Chris Christies viral video about his classmate who became addicted to drugs, left his family, and died alone in a motel? Do you recall the drug his friend used and died from? It was Percocet. Christie (and every other politician) calls for these three things in relation to the Christies friends story:
1) Dont imprison drug addicts. Fair enough. But Christies friend was never arrested or jailed. Of course, he wasnt using a per se illegal drug.
2) PROVIDE MORE TREATMENT! Umm, only Christie said recounted how, over a decade leading to his death, his friend was in and out of rehab.
3) Limit access to narcotics. Really? If we hurt ourselves, have an operation, or our children have their wisdom teeth removed or break their leg, they shouldnt get painkillers?
Why dont we limit painkillers for you? As for me and my family, we prefer to pick and choose. My two-year-old grandson was born with malformed fingers requiring a difficult operation, after which he received painkillers. A two-year-old! Surely, he is a prime candidate for addictionno drugs for him!
Okay, Ill stop dilly-dallying. The correct answer is: 1) drugs will always be with us, we have to learn how to use and control them as an ordinary part of our lives; 2) we need to create, par Hart, communities and a world in which people find it worthwhile to live.
Otherwise, and even so, addiction will always be with us. But at least if we create a world worth living in and people who welcome living in it, we as a society will manage addiction, something which will always be with us.
--------------------------------
Stanton Peele is the author, with Ilse Thompson, of "Recover! Stop Thinking Like an Addict and Reclaim Your Life with the PERFECT Program." He is the developer of the Life Process Program.
Posted by baseball55 on May 4, 2016, at 20:32:00
In reply to Drugs Are Not Really the Problem, posted by stan_the_man70 on May 4, 2016, at 12:08:08
Yay! The best thing I've ever read on addiction.
> When It Comes to Addiction, Drugs Are Not Really the Problem
>
> What do the 1994 Crime Bill and our current heroin scare have in common?
> Blaming social and human problems on drugs.
>
> By Stanton Peele /
>
> AlterNet
>
> April 29, 2016
>
> Columbia University neuropsychologist Carl Hart has written a bestseller, High Price, comprising two related parts: his research with drugs showing that drugs effects are secondary in relation to the rewards associated with them (pay addicts enough and they quit), and his experience of life in the Miami ghetto, in which the introduction of crack to the community, and cracks ultimate disappearance from it, had no impact on the social depredations pervading that community.
>
> The bottom line of both experiences: drugs are not the problem.
>
> But we never learn that. In fact, we have a government industry led by Nora Volkow, the acclaimed director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, based on the propaganda that drugs are bad (note the term drug abuse in the title of her agency).
>
> For Volkow, drugs change the brain to make people irresponsible and immoral. Ergo, when Volkow and her ilk cure drug addictionthe never-ending yellow brick road extending infintitely into the past and futurewell solve all of our social problems!
>
> Oh, since Volkow was appointed director of the NIDA, in 2003, both heroin and prescription painkiller addiction and death rates have hit record levels. This remarkable achievement was at one time considered impossible, since it was felt that the two narcotic addiction habits substituted for one another, such that a decline in one inevitably produced a rise in the other.
>
> The U.S. government, at its website, crows that Volkows groundbreaking discoveries about the brain have revolutionized our understanding of drug addiction, enabling us to respond effectively to the problem. Meanwhile, Volkow has performed the modern anti-miracle of creating simultaneous painkiller and heroin epidemics!
>
> How did she do it? By explaining that drug use causes people to behave in criminal, antisocial ways no matter the conditions under which they live, to wit:
>
> It is not enough to say that addiction is a chronic brain disease. What we mean by that is something very specific and profound: that because of drug use, a persons brain is no longer able to produce something needed for our functioning and that healthy people take for granted, free will.
> Volkow is the anti-Hart. Whereas Hart says drugs are not the problem, Volkow says people's lives are not the problemdrug use and addiction are.
>
> Which brings us back to the crack scare, drug predators, and the Clintons.
>
> Remember that Bill Clintons choice for drug czar was general Barry McCaffreyitself a bizarre comment on our countrys century-long insanity about drug use. McCaffrey was anti-medical marijuana, a great D.A.R.E. backer, andalong with Bill and Hillaryhe opposed needle exchange programs. Thus the Clinton administrations policy led to tens of thousands of AIDS deaths among IV drug users.
>
> Meanwhile, the Clinton drug policy excluded those convicted of even marijuana possession from receiving welfare, food stamps, or public housing. The logic: "If you use drugs, youre not a real American. This approach fed into Clintons role in the mass incarceration of African-Americans.
>
> Do you see the pattern yet, a pattern from which we can never seemingly extricate ourselves, no matter how self-destructive the consequences? Yes, the biggest addiction of all is the one the U.S. has with its dysfunctional views of, and policies toward, drugs. This dysfunction, this addiction is, of course, rampant in the current political discourse. Drug use is a disease that only more treatment and scientific cures for addiction can solve!
>
> Do you remember New Jersey Governor Chris Christies viral video about his classmate who became addicted to drugs, left his family, and died alone in a motel? Do you recall the drug his friend used and died from? It was Percocet. Christie (and every other politician) calls for these three things in relation to the Christies friends story:
>
> 1) Dont imprison drug addicts. Fair enough. But Christies friend was never arrested or jailed. Of course, he wasnt using a per se illegal drug.
>
> 2) PROVIDE MORE TREATMENT! Umm, only Christie said recounted how, over a decade leading to his death, his friend was in and out of rehab.
>
> 3) Limit access to narcotics. Really? If we hurt ourselves, have an operation, or our children have their wisdom teeth removed or break their leg, they shouldnt get painkillers?
>
> Why dont we limit painkillers for you? As for me and my family, we prefer to pick and choose. My two-year-old grandson was born with malformed fingers requiring a difficult operation, after which he received painkillers. A two-year-old! Surely, he is a prime candidate for addictionno drugs for him!
>
> Okay, Ill stop dilly-dallying. The correct answer is: 1) drugs will always be with us, we have to learn how to use and control them as an ordinary part of our lives; 2) we need to create, par Hart, communities and a world in which people find it worthwhile to live.
>
> Otherwise, and even so, addiction will always be with us. But at least if we create a world worth living in and people who welcome living in it, we as a society will manage addiction, something which will always be with us.
>
> --------------------------------
> Stanton Peele is the author, with Ilse Thompson, of "Recover! Stop Thinking Like an Addict and Reclaim Your Life with the PERFECT Program." He is the developer of the Life Process Program.
>
Posted by SLS on May 4, 2016, at 21:07:16
In reply to Re: Drugs Are Not Really the Problem » stan_the_man70, posted by baseball55 on May 4, 2016, at 20:32:00
> Yay! The best thing I've ever read on addiction.
Why?
What are the things that you agree with?
- Scott
Posted by baseball55 on May 5, 2016, at 18:44:57
In reply to Re: Drugs Are Not Really the Problem » baseball55, posted by SLS on May 4, 2016, at 21:07:16
> > Yay! The best thing I've ever read on addiction.
>
> Why?
>
> What are the things that you agree with?
>
>
> - ScottI've kind of forgotten much of the article by today, but generally I think his point that addiction is not nearly the community problem it is made out to be is interesting. The problems are caused mostly by the illegal market, where gangs battle for turf, prices are high and poor addicts need to steal to pay for drugs. After all, where drugs are used by people with money - when I worked on Wall Street, virtually everyone abused cocaine - there are no noted problems at all. Many people are addicted to opioids for years with little effect if they have the money to get them. I know, because I was addicted and wrote two books, dozens of articles, was highly regarded in my job, was a good mother. What stopped me was the difficulty and illegality of getting the drugs, not to mention the cost.
The founder of Johns Hopkins was a morphine addict.Even the OD problem is often due to the unpredictability of potency in street drugs. The AIDS-Hep-C problems due to the unavailability of clean needles. A drug agenda that focused on treatment, education and - yes- acceptance of drug use, could also teach people who OD on pills about the dangers, potency, dosages that are tolerable, etc.
I do not believe in the war on drugs. I think drugs should be legal but only by prescription, so that addicts can be identified, educated and treated. I'm not sure what seizing cocaine, burning opium crops, prosecuting low-level dealers and users really accomplishes except to raise the street price and drive addicts to criminality to pay for the drugs. Where there is a demand, a way to supply will always be found. The key is to reduce the demand.
Posted by SLS on May 5, 2016, at 22:33:25
In reply to Re: Drugs Are Not Really the Problem, posted by baseball55 on May 5, 2016, at 18:44:57
Hi BB.
Thanks for the explanation. I am still having trouble understanding this stuff.
- Scott----------------------------------------
> > > Yay! The best thing I've ever read on addiction.
> > Why?
> >
> > What are the things that you agree with?> I've kind of forgotten much of the article by today, but generally I think his point that addiction is not nearly the community problem it is made out to be is interesting. The problems are caused mostly by the illegal market, where gangs battle for turf, prices are high and poor addicts need to steal to pay for drugs. After all, where drugs are used by people with money - when I worked on Wall Street, virtually everyone abused cocaine - there are no noted problems at all. Many people are addicted to opioids for years with little effect if they have the money to get them. I know, because I was addicted and wrote two books, dozens of articles, was highly regarded in my job, was a good mother. What stopped me was the difficulty and illegality of getting the drugs, not to mention the cost.
> The founder of Johns Hopkins was a morphine addict.
>
> Even the OD problem is often due to the unpredictability of potency in street drugs. The AIDS-Hep-C problems due to the unavailability of clean needles. A drug agenda that focused on treatment, education and - yes- acceptance of drug use, could also teach people who OD on pills about the dangers, potency, dosages that are tolerable, etc.
>
> I do not believe in the war on drugs. I think drugs should be legal but only by prescription, so that addicts can be identified, educated and treated. I'm not sure what seizing cocaine, burning opium crops, prosecuting low-level dealers and users really accomplishes except to raise the street price and drive addicts to criminality to pay for the drugs. Where there is a demand, a way to supply will always be found. The key is to reduce the demand.
Posted by stan_the_man70 on May 7, 2016, at 7:11:57
In reply to Third leading cause, posted by stan_the_man70 on May 4, 2016, at 9:06:12
-----------------------quote reference
http://www.alternet.org/story/155170/6_kinds_of_pills_big_pharma_tries_to_get_you_hooked_on_for_life
-----------------------end quote6 Kinds of Pills Big Pharma Tries to Get You Hooked on for Life
Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in the late 1990s,
the number of people on prescription drugs for life has ballooned.By Martha Rosenberg /
AlterNet
April 26, 2012Why has Big Pharma failed to produce new antibiotics for deadly infections like MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococci), C. Difficile and Acinetobacter baumannii even as they leap from hospital to community settings? Because there is no money in it.
Pharma executives "have shown less interest in medicines like antibiotics that actually cure disease than in those that only treat symptoms," writes Melody Petersen, author of Our Daily Meds. "Most blockbusters are pills for conditions such as anxiety, high cholesterol or constipation that must be taken daily, often for months or years. They are designed for rich Americans who can afford to buy them." Nor are medicines for tropical diseases like malaria, which kills a child every 30 seconds, a priority, notes Petersen. They also lack ka-ching.
Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in the late 1990s, the number of people on prescription drugs -- especially prescription drugs for life -- has ballooned. Between 2001 to 2007 the percentage of adults and children on one or more prescriptions for chronic conditions rose by more than 12 million, reports the Associated Press and 25 percent of US children now take a medication for a chronic condition. Seven percent of kids take two or more daily drugs. Who says advertising doesn't work?
Of the top-selling drugs in 2011, led by Lipitor, Nexium, Plavix, Advair Diskus, Abilify, Seroquel, Singulair and Crestor, none is taken occasionally, or "as needed" and the treatment goal is never to get off the drug, like an antibiotic. Why would Pharma deal itself out of the game?
There are two ways Pharma hooks the US public on prescriptions for life. First, prescriptions that used to be taken as needed for pain, anxiety, GERD (gastroesophageal reflux), asthma, mood problems, migraines and even erectile dysfunction, gout and retroviruses (in some cases) are now full-time medicines. Instead of having a bad day or heartburn, you have a disease like anxiety or GERD which calls for full pharmaceutical artillery. Instead of having body pain to be treated transiently, you are put on an antidepressant like Cymbalta or seizure drug like Lyrica or Neurontin indefinitely.
Secondly, many of the top-selling drugs today are to prevent chronic conditions like high cholesterol, high blood pressure and osteoporosis that people are said to be "at risk" for. Needless to say, in both cases, people never know if the drugs are working or whether they would have had symptoms without them. This creates a loyal customer who is afraid to quit a prescription because it might be working. And why should they quit anyway when a third party is probably paying?
Here are some drugs -- not all -- that are marketed for perpetuity.
1. ADHD and Drugs for Pediatric 'Psychopathologies'
----snippet removed
2. Hormone Replacement Therapy
----snippet removed
3. Happy Pills
----snippet removed
4. Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs)
----snippet removed
5. Statins
----snippet removed
6. Asthma-Control Medicines
----snippet removed--------------------------
Martha Rosenberg frequently writes about the impact of the pharmaceutical, food and gun industries on public health. Her work has appeared in the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune and other outlets.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------A much longer article
Drugs you don't need
For Disorders you don't haveInside the pharmaceutical industry's campaign to put us to sleep
by Jonathan Cohn
Illustrations by Sam RoweThe Huffington Post
-------------------------quote reference
http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/sleep-advertising/
-------------------------end quote
Posted by Zyprexa on May 7, 2016, at 22:29:48
In reply to Re: Drugs Are Not Really the Problem, posted by baseball55 on May 5, 2016, at 18:44:57
I mostly agree with baseball.
All drugs should be legal. The price should come way down. So they are not stealing. No more drug wars. Import them legaly. Have a doctor monitor use. Not try to reduce use unless patient wants to. Provide jobs to drug addicts. Dispense the drug in a way they won't go crazy and use too much.
Have crack dispenser at work that gives them the right amount at a given time through out the day. Suppy heroin in a timely maner,
Instead of jail, have rehab for people who get out of control. Can't function. Arrest people for crimes like stealing for drugs.
Yes and have all clean drugs. Pure.
This will replace the illegal market. If a dealer gets them hooked. They will lose there business because of price of legal drugs they will now be able to get. Will be much lower.
Posted by Zyprexa on May 7, 2016, at 22:49:23
In reply to Re: Drugs Are Not Really the Problem, posted by Zyprexa on May 7, 2016, at 22:29:48
Pot should be legal. States with legal pot have a 25% lower opiate use. Just like ecigs should be more available than cigs, and cheeper. So people will be more inclined to vape instead of smoke.
Posted by SLS on May 8, 2016, at 4:05:06
In reply to Pills Big Pharma Tries to Get You Hooked, posted by stan_the_man70 on May 7, 2016, at 7:11:57
I don't think things work that way. What proof can you offer?
The article you provided is nothing more than self-serving speculation and disinformation. Let "Big Pharma" do its job to provide its current miracles and develop new ones. The only thing they can be faulted on is the money they require people to pay for their products. This is unconscionable.
- Scott
This is the end of the thread.
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