Wonder Drugs – The Cure or the Real Killer?

Billions of dollars are spent by pharmaceutical companies, the federal government, hospitals, universities, medical professionals, non-profit organizations and a host of supporting groups to develop drugs for the prevention and treatment of the myriad of diseases afflicting Americans. If you watch television you must conclude we are the sickest society in history, not to mention the one most prone to vanity medical procedures like plastic surgery, liposuction, etc., etc.

If you follow the advice of the professional hucksters on TV your body will be loaded with antibiotics, steroids, hormones and other foreign substances to a degree never experienced before. So the question is, if all this is taking place in the good old USA, why are we so sick? If our medical treatment and prevention is the best in the world why do we have the highest rates of some diseases like cancer and heart disease of most nations in the world? Why are diseases we thought were conquered like polio and smallpox returning stronger than ever?

Well, seems we’ve studied about everything but the most important thing of all, what the long term effect of all those preventive and treatment programs are doing to our bodies. We were born with a natural immune system to protect us and spend our entire lives trying to destroy it with unnatural injections, pills and other treatments.

We believe that drug companies peddling their latest miracle drug should be held financially liable for the long term consequences of those treatments even if that liability puts them out of business forever. Humans are not lab rats intended to be subjected to the whims and profit motives of the corporate healers.

When did we forget that we need cures, not maintenance, to eliminate diseases, not extend life with the disease in an altered state, we need treatment that stops because the disease is cured, not a lifetime dependence on prescription drugs. Truth is we need to change the focus of the medical research community.

If the federal government and non-profit organizations put up much of the billions and billions of medical research dollars then why are the pharmaceutical companies and doctors the only ones who profit from the work? The government should get the profits if government money is responsible for the drug or treatment. I bet many new wonder drugs would not be sold if the profits went to the government. Better still we would quickly find out which companies were only interested in the bottom line rather than public health.

Former Vice President and Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew was a strange creature but one thing he said we should have taken to heart 25 years ago and we might not be in this mess. Spiro said America was on a “collective national trip” with prescription drugs, and the legal drugs were more dangerous than illegal drugs.

As long as we are on this legal drug kick let me tell you something else. Our wonderful billion dollar pharmaceutical companies are running TV ads telling how they donate $5 billion a year by giving drugs for free to the poor and others. What a nice thought for Christmas, except the drug companies are giving away billions and still making a gross profit.

Are the drugs being given away really needed by the poor? Are they not the result of profit driven over-production in the first place? Do the companies not get a tax write off for the charitable donation? Since they are still making a profit, is the cost of this effort not already being paid by the regular customers like me and you?

I say the odds of getting well are better with Chinese Herbalists, Medicine Men and Women and Shamans than with the western medical world and before you pop the next pill you should think about what I’ve said.