A Courtesy of Healing Touch Chiropractic and Dr. Gary L. Easter

How much influence is too much influence?

(the blue links are to the source info)

There has been a lot of talk in the news lately about the influence that major pharmaceutical companies have over the medical establishment.  In a recent study, several General Practitioners in England where questioned about prescribing habits.  About 70 percent of GPs regarded drug representatives as an efficient way to obtain new drug information, according to researchers. While the doctors were generally wary of the drug industry's objectives, they tended to believe that its information would be selective but accurate.

The GPs reported that they could generally spot misleading information, however, according to study findings only 17 percent of GPs sought out evidence from peer-reviewed journals before making prescribing decisions. Their reasons for not seeking such evidence-based information included lack of time, difficulty in interpretation, irrelevance and lack of attention to clinical experience.

The study warns that pharmaceutical companies have a great influence on GPs and stresses the urgent need for straightforward and reliable drug information from independent sources.

It is estimated that the pharmaceutical companies spend $15 billion per year marketing to physicians.  Drug companies are among the most profitable stocks on the market so do you think they would spend that kind of money unless they were getting a significant return on investment?  The fact of the matter is that the United States alone is spending nearly $1 trillion for health care each year.

That is one thousand billion dollars.

The late Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois was fond of talking about Defense Department spending by saying "a billion dollars here and a billion dollars there, and before you know it you are talking about real money."  You can bet there is a lot of profit in that trillion dollars.

On top of direct marketing to physicians, another article alleges that pharmaceutical companies are paying money to US State health officials.  The very officials that make the decisions which brand of drugs will be used by the state health programs in prisons as well as Medicaid programs and state run hospitals.  Drug companies already spend a considerable amount influencing congress.  By some estimates as much as $150 Million.

Another influenced area is drug research.  Major medical journals are starting to rebel against the practice of drug companies unduly influencing which medical studies actually get published and which get buried.  In an article in the Washington Post, several journals are adopting a uniform policy that reserves the right to refuse to publish drug company-sponsored studies unless the researchers involved are guaranteed scientific independence.

So by influencing everything from drug studies, to approval by congress and use by state health officials, up to individual doctor's prescribing habits, the pharmaceutical companies maintain their trillion dollar industry. 

Now before we are accused of being biased against drug companies let me say that drugs, when used wisely, are a great help to the recovery of health and are indeed necessary.  But as in all things it is up to the individual patient to research what is right for them and their conditions and what is very good marketing by pharmaceutical company reps.

Now before we are accused of being biased against drug companies let me say that drugs, when used wisely, are a great help to the recovery of health and are indeed necessary.  But as in all things it is up to the individual patient to research to find the difference between what is right for them and their conditions and what is very good marketing by pharmaceutical company reps.