Big Pharma; always inventing and "discovering" helpful drugs, happy energetic people running around, because they're using their drugs (turn on CNN for a day and watch their ads, you'll see what I mean). But beneath the cloak, hides an insidious industry with trumendous control. Control over who and what? That's what we will discover in this series of articles I'll be writing. My aim is to bring awareness on how big pharma operate, and to hopefully bring you a better understanding. It's not enough to just turn on the TV and see people demonstrating or complaining about the pharmaceutical industry, it's important to understand why.
I'm splitting the topic into several posts, to avoid long readings and because it takes time to write on such a hot matter. As an introduction, I would like to start with three personal anecdotes.
Story 1: The First Doctor
I did my Masters studies in Immunology, it's a branch of science that deals with antibodies, infections, bacteria, virii (not viruses). My studies were focused on autoantibodies in rhumatoid arthritis, and my supervising boss was a rhumatologist himself. In fact, the whole department's research team was supervised by rheumatologists. At Christmas time, my boss received a huge gift basket, including fancy chocolates, fruits and a few bottles of expensive wine, courtesy of Pfizer. At the time, I didn't think much of it, the department was impressed by the gift, and everyone was cheering for my boss. It's the holidays after all. We also had some side research projects with Bayer (if Bayer sent that gift, I wouldn't have thought too much of it.)
It got me thinking: we never heard my boss talk about Pfizer, so why did Pfizer send him such a gift?
You may also ask: why is Bayer even doing research in a university, don't they have their own facilities?
Story 2: The Second Doctor
Fast forward some years later. I proudly finished my PhD in Immunology and I was on the verge of completing my post-doc studies (in biochemistry/pharmacology this time) when I got hit by anxiety attacks. I'll spare you the details of my ordeal, so I had to halt everything and take a big break. My body and mind were overwhelmed and I couldn't take the pressures anymore. Unfortunately, anxiety led to depression, and I went to consult my good old family doctor. We called him Dr. Tylenol, cause whatever your ailment, he often prescribed Tylenol. So he wanted to prescribe me a drug as a treatment. Now, I'm a scientist, I come from an academic place, I had friends who struggled with anxiety and depression during their studies, and a few were indeed on medication. That particular medication he wanted to prescribe, some of my friends tried it and they totally didn't like its side effects. So I asked him, can you prescribe something else? NO he said, it's the best drug out there, very efficient blah blah blah. He was defending it so much, he categorically REFUSED to prescribe anything else! So I let him prescribe it and I tossed into the garbage when I left his office.
It got me thinking: why was he so defensive about that drug?
Story 3: The Third Doctor
My father's friend is a successful internist, he practices in the USA. We visited him a few times, he visited us too. He was a big advocate of Pfizer. Everytime we met, Pfizer was the main subject of his talk. He even often offered me to come see him when I finish my studies and that he would help me find a job at Pfizer. I found that thoughtful. He talked about Pfizer as if it was the only big pharma in existence. Such a high praise and admiration for their drugs. He later became a consultant for them... no surprise there.
It got me thinking: why was he so enthralled by that company?
I hope you're not bored by my stories so far, but you can already spot a pattern here, big pharma's powerful tentacular grip on many aspects of research and medicine. Perhaps similar to a japanese hentai tentacle rape (you can google that to see what it looks like).
"Rest, Neo, the answers are coming."
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This is great but you left me hanging. I was hoping to get to the point sooner.
Im looking forward to the rest of your story.
Followed and upvoted.
Thing is, there are many points to be made, putting them in one big article might be too long to read and would take me days to write. Besides, good writing keeps people interested and wanting for more, look at what Games of Thrones has done to us!
When I (or any of my colleagues) wrote scientific articles, it would take a month to finalize one! Not because we're slow, but because scientific writing is very rigourous and is often submitted to 2-3 referees before acceptance for publication. So it's imperative we submit a quality manuscript or risk rejection and another month of corrections! So I'm trying to keep that level of quality and bring you good stuff, but in a shorter time frame. I'd rather take my time, than throw random or incoherant ideas in a long text.
Yes I understand and completely agree.
Its that netflix and amazon prime has spolied me with the ability to binge watch. 😵 😵 😵
Congratulations @drakos!
Your post was mentioned in my hit parade in the following category:
Great article. I look forward to the next instalment. Many people don’t realise that Big Pharma provides millions in funding for ‘independent’ research, but only to scientists who will produce reports supporting whatever hypothesis big pharma wants to be proven. There is nothing independent about it!
This post received a 4.1% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @drakos! For more information, click here!
Yours is a great post. I totally understand......
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@marymg2014/my-steemit-introduction-life-after-employment-in-the-healthcare-field
Upvoted, resteemed and followed
great start to what will undoubtedly be an eye opening journey down the rabbit hole. i was once the guinea pig of a doctor that was under the thrall of the pharmagomerate 😉 due to 'clinical depression', stress, hypertension and assorted modern ailments and was prescribed medications with a list of potential side-effects worse than the ailment and contraindications that ẃould take a semanticist to unravel. i managed to survive because made the physician's desk reference my pal
upvoted, resteemed and sharing on facebook
Fuck man...way too good of a post. I'm resteeming this shit - I can relate so fucking much.
Keep writing man. 100.
Thank you so much, I'm sure there are tons of people out there with similar experiences. I'm eager to share more details about big pharma. Maybe I'll write part 2 later tonight.
Absolutely man. Definitely write part 2. This is the kind of stuff that SHOULD be up on the trending list. Not the crap that's always up there.
Indeed, that's why after HF19, I'll be more picky in casting my votes. Voting for pancakes (even though I love pancakes) ain't productive for the community.
We neeeeed emotional content
Haha great vid man. Definitely got the right idea going into HF19 ;)
Common, all those companies just bought all medical staff in every medical facilities.
It's not a secret. and for sure, all their expenses paid by end patients
but I'll check following parts :)
Damn your spoiler haha. To read about it is one thing, but to actually witness it is another. But not all doctors are necessarily bought (luckily), I'll discuss that in detail later.
my recent visit to my family doctor and following visit to a pharmacy was very funny, when the pharmacy tried to sell me 10ml of hydrocortisone ear drops solution for $167 (thanks god, I paid only $10 after insurance)
But $167 for 10ml? it suppose to be from a pure gold and wrapped in few Litecoins
That's when I realize how lucky we are in Canada. USA is a totall rip-off when it comes to healthcare and medication. Everything here is mostly covered by the gvmt, and we pay a fraction of the medications price. We pay higher taxes though, but at least the whole population is getting benefits in return.
I'm originally from Russia and I grew up in USSR where all those things were free: totally free medicine and education.
We paid practically nothing in Pharmacies - say, the most expensive medicine which I ever saw costed maybe $2 per course
You mean in Russia you had free medicine and education?
in USSR
Russia now is slightly different but if you have an insurance (which is paid totally by employer or by gov, if you unemployed or retired) it's still free in all medical facilities, except private hospitals and private dental offices.
I'm following just to find out what comes next!
Thank you dear :)
Big pharma sure is scary! Have you seen 'Prescription Thugs'?
I surely will. Never seen it.
I can tell you are about to have some good stories ahead of you! They could probably be never ending with as much fraud and corruption we have in our medical industry. I myself have had similar experiences in the medical & pharma field.
You've probably read these books, but if not, I highly recommend them!
An American Sickness (https://www.amazon.com/American-Sickness-Healthcare-Became-Business/dp/1594206759)
America's Bitter Pill (https://www.amazon.com/Americas-Bitter-Pill-Politics-Healthcare/dp/0812986687)
I look forward to your next posts!
Thanks for those suggestions. There is a gazillion ton of references (books, documentaries) about the corruption in Big Pharma. It would take ages do sift through them all. That's why I'm writing this serie, trying to give a global insight (without getting too heavy on the details) on how that machinery is operating. It's up to the users to take that step through the door and walk their own path of investigation.
I read your story and as a future MD I'm sorry that you had that unpleasant experience with your doctor. It's kinda obvious your doctor was paid to prescribe it. But my question is why didn't you even try the medicine he prescribed you? I understand that your friends didn't like that but maybe it would work out for you? Good luck and take care! xX Karolina
I could have tried it, true, but I was furious by his attitude, that I even stopped consulting him unless I had some really really bad issues. Why should he or anyone else not give me a choice? I was begging him for an alternative and he denied me that, especially that there's over a dozen different drugs of the type needed for my case.
Luckily for me, he was old and retired a year later, so I had to find a new family doctor. The new doctor I found was younger and way more understanding than the old one. He explained to me in detail the differences between the several drugs he could prescribe and that's exactly what he did. My choice was respected.
I just graduated as a pharmacist this past May. I completely understand what you are saying. Many of the pharmaceutical companies are just greedy and many doctors just over prescribe.
In my opinion there is a place for medicine for sure, however we as a society should use medications less often than what we currently use. We should focus our attention more on prevention of many of these diseases!
Followed you sir!
I'm happy to see you have an open mind about your field of work. They don't want prevention, they don't want cures, they want a perpetual state of disease, to keep the money flowing.