Physicians and Prescription Profits: Is Your Health at Risk?

Advertisements for the newest prescription drugs saturate all avenues of media. Drug companies ensure that our brains are flooded with images, catchphrases, songs, dances, and the like. They want us to call back to memory this brand and that brand each time we have an ailment. Prescription drug companies do not discriminate with their product marketing, and apparently neither do the doctors that earn incentives to push certain products.

It's no secret that the United States is run largely by corporations seeking to make ridiculous profits off the too-busy-to-perform-my-own-research American public. Pharmaceutical companies join others in looking over the lawmakers' shoulders nudging for particular legislation and giving timely "Ahem"s when unfavorable legislation is laid on the table. This is where the manipulation begins. The next stop for the manipulation is the media.

"Watch out, the next miracle drug is on its way! Head to your doctor now, and place your advance order!" That's what is uttered right before the nonstop smiling, ever cheerful, artificially attractive actress winks at you; then your favorite show returns from a commercial break. Before you know it, you are thinking about the product you saw and what it can do for you.

As you reach for the phone to call your doctor's after hours line (and be charged a small convenience-or shall I say, inconvenience-fee), the pharmaceutical company behind that product and its marketing has just shoved your doctor into its back pocket as a security measure, a financial security measure; needless to say, the doctor's office serves as the last stop for this line of manipulation right before it is regurgitated onto you during your visit to your doctor . . . .

According to a recent survey published in The New England Journal of Medicine, 94% of the doctors that responded confirmed a relationship of some sort with the pharmaceutical industry; the survey included doctors from six specialties. This is troubling but not surprising. I don't know about you, but when I go to a doctor's appointment or take my children in, there are enough prescription-branded items that you would think that you were in the middle of an actual pharmacy. There are writing pads with prescription titles on the top. There are coupon holders for certain medications. I'm pretty sure there must be some toilet seat cover package swarming with some new hemorrhoid product name.

Pardon my crassness, but I have a problem with back scratching in the name of profits with far less regard for safety. For instance, I was quite shocked to find that two prescription steroids for eczema, namely Elidel and Protopic, have been linked to cancer. What was even more shocking was that my trusted pediatrician prescribed both for my sons when they were infants with eczema in lieu of "harsher" steroids because of their age. Of course, she had samples of each readily available, and her pen practically wrote the prescription by itself. I'm sure my pediatrician meant well, but I question her omission of other options or side effects.

When I questioned regarding side effects, she mentioned that the side effects were similar to other steroids but far less severe. She reassured me that the products were SAFE! I completely understand the lack of research and links at the time. I also believe that I should have demanded more information rather than leaning on my faith in my pediatric provider, yet I have to question if she was pushing these drugs because of the benefits to her and her practice. She, of course, has to make a living, but ethically-speaking, should she be making potentially dangerous concessions for the sake of making more money?

In spite of it all, I must say that I was pleased that in September, a new bill was introduced by US Senators Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA). The legislation would "require manufacturers of pharmaceutical drugs, devices and biologics to disclose the amount of money they give doctors through payments, gifts, honoraria, travel and other means." This sounds promising in theory, but the question is how will the information be verified and within what time frame? After all, didn't it take years to catch on to the Enron and WorldCom schemes?? I wonder!

I praise those pharmaceutical companies that introduced breakthrough drugs that have significantly improved the lives of our sick and ailing family members, but I sneer at those companies that are jumping on every cough and sneeze to shove another "new and improved" or "better than another brand" product into the faces of the optimistic consumer who just seeks to live a better life. I know that some of those breakthrough products reached the masses through favoritism, but I consider it worth it. For those companies that market products that eventually kill off the human test subjects and are recalled years later . . . a big fat raspberry to you--PPPPLLLLLGGGGHHH!