This information was in the back of my August 21, 1953 Collier’s. At the time, as stated at the bottom, a vaccine was not yet ready. But there was HOPE. And there was follow-through. And thankfully, Jonas Salk produced an injectible vaccine. Along with the oral vaccine licensed in 1962, they reduced the worldwide incidence from an estimated 350,000 cases in 1988 to just 223 cases in 2012.
It was a time before Big Pharma, the term for the enormous and ever-growing, ever-powerful pharmaceutical industry. RationalWiki points out three abuses of Big Pharma:
1. Trying to suck every penny out of the pockets of the sick, injured, dying, and hypochondriacs.
We’ve all been there, right? Several years ago, I was prescribed an antibiotic called Clindamycin post-root canal, which caused a C.diff infection, for which I was then prescribed ANOTHER bottle of pills to cure THAT, to the tune of $400. As it turns out, it was completely unnecessary. Not familiar with C.diff? It’s like Satan raping you from the inside out, but without buying you dinner first.
Of course, there are drugs that legitimately aid us and even prevent death in many cases, but they are few and far between. There is no race for a cure; just a race for the dollar.
Families USA claims that: among the nine pharmaceutical companies examined in the report… all but one spent more than twice as much on marketing, advertising, and administration than they did on research and development… Six out of the nine companies made more money in net profits than they spent on research and development last year.
2. Inventing new maladies so people will buy more drugs.
Surely you’ve seen the commercial for pba (Pseudo Bulbar Affect) on TV. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to call bull$hit on this one:
3. Renaming old maladies so people will think their conditions are more serious, forcing them to pay higher prices for prescriptions.
Remember in middle school when you learned Hitler gassed six million Jews, and that seemed like a TON? Well, that’s how many children are taking pills for ADHD, aka ADD, aka hyperkinetic disorder. When I was in school, they just called hyper kids “spaz.” Maybe ADHD meds work for some, but SIX MILLION seems a bit overkill.
Granted, muscular rheumatism isn’t as catchy as fibromyalgia is nowadays, but other conditions sounded much better in the way, way back. Depression is lame, but black dog paints a picture. I remember the volunteer at the humane society telling me very few folks adopted black dogs because they couldn’t read their facial expressions. Now that’s depressing.
And don’t get me STARTED on side effects…
Speaking of anal leakage, recognize this fellow?
pdxretro.com
Jerry Lewis hosted the MDA telethon nearly every Labor Day weekend of your life. Do you think he would have signed on as host if he thought there wouldn’t be a cure 45 years and two billion dollars later? Doctor, please.
Chris Rock said it best in his stand-up routine: “What’s the last $hit a doctor cured? Polio? You know how long ago polio was? That’s the like the first season of Lucy...Ain’t no money in the cure, the money’s in the medicine…that’s how a drug dealer makes his money, on the comeback.”
Need more drug rant? Reference last year’s post: http://sanceau.com/2012/12/30/generation-medication/.
