Big Pharma is an insidious beast. It is a billion dollar drug dealing industry, and we are a country that is fighting a war that we have essentially created and are supplying ourselves. What’s even more worrisome is the fact that big pharma has found its most profitable client - our children. Rosenburg (2012, para.5) explained it this way:
Children are known to be compliant patients, and that makes them a highly desirable market for drugs, says former Pharma rep Gwen Olsen, author of Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher. Children are forced by school personnel to take their medications, they are forced by their parents to takes their drugs, and they are forced by their doctors to take their drugs. So, children are the ideal patient-type because they represent refilled prescription compliance and longevity.
This resonated deeply with me because, within the first few weeks of my oldest son being in Kindergarten, his teacher contacted us and told us that she felt he seriously needed to be evaluated for ADHD. This was because he was continually socializing with others instead of sitting still and doing his work. He also had other behavioral issues that we were already aware of but had already been working with specialists to correct naturally. However, after months of being told that he needed to be seen because apparently, he was on the verge of failing Kinder, we took him in and had him assessed. The doctor spent literally 5-10 minutes with us, gave us an evaluation form to fill out at home and one for his teacher to fill out. After those were completed and turned back in, another 5-10 minute visit with the doctor concluded in a diagnosis of ADHD and a referral to a Behavioral Health Specialist. During these short meetings, the doctor was already pushing for my son to be medicated. When we met with the Behavioral Health Specialist, he immediately recommended Adderall, even though I was seriously against medicating my child. He was five years old! My husband convinced me to give the medication a try, and I did. However, after about three years of seeing my son lose his appetite, grow irritable and aggressive, and suffer from height retardation…I stopped the medication. The side-effects, however mild, were just not worth it to me. In the video we watched this week, one comment stuck out most to me: “How do we know how they [children] are supposed to be when they are altered from very young ages? Their brains are still growing; they are still trying to figure out what kind of individual they want to be. So we’re not even seeing the real person, they don’t even know who they are” (Generation Rx, 2015). It is scary to think that medicating, especially within children, is the first answer to resolving issues instead of looking for natural ways to learn to cope with whatever an individual is struggling with. Instead of prescribing a pill, perhaps doctors, parents, school personnel, etc. need to go back to teaching and providing young generations with the life-tools that will help them overcome adversity and hardships healthily and productively so that in future years when struggle arises they know how to handle it effectively.
Big Pharma is nothing more than a marketing organization out to make the big bucks by any means possible, but mainly through keeping people sick. That is its primary role in the diagnosis and treatment of psychopathology. Suffer from insomnia, better prescribe some Ambien. Have anxiety, take some Xanax. Got a child that “can’t” focus in school, better give them some Adderall. Feeling a bit sad, here’s some Prozac. All of these medications are simply Band-Aids for much bigger issues. They may temporarily manage the issue, but they do nothing for the patient in the long-term. Most patients become reliant on medication to feel “normal,” and this often leads to dependency, addiction, and in a lot of instances…death. But I think dependency is the main goal for big pharma. It is a structured system that is designed to make and keep people sick, chronically dependent on their drugs for survival, and as previously mentioned…these drugs simply mask symptoms rather than eradicating or curing the primary source of the disease. But I mean none of this should come as a surprise, because if humans are healthy, the healthcare industry cannot sustain itself. Therefore, it becomes clear that it is in its self-serving interest to “promote illness in the name of wellness” (Hagopian, 2015).
Something else that I find interesting, did you all know that we are one of only two countries that have a government that permits prescription drugs to be advertised on television? Some believe that this is only so because there are former government officials now working for the FDA, which gives them more prestige and influence. They use these connections to carry out industry goals, and Big Pharma has a momentous competitive lead over the public interest. Moreover, the direct-to-consumer drug advertising that takes place here in America makes it seem like you can walk into a clinic for conditions like depression, get a prescription for your symptoms, and then step back out basically cured. As maintained in Shulz’s (2004) article:
The psychiatrist Yutaka Ono advocates raising awareness about depression, but GlaxoSmithKline’s marketing made him uncomfortable: ”They ran a very intense campaign about mild depression where a beautiful young lady comes out all smiles and says, ‘I went to a doctor, and now I’m happy.’ You know, depression is not that easy. And if it is that easy, it might not be depression.”
In countries like Japan, this kind of advertising is illegal. I’m not against raising awareness of mental illness and having people seek treatment when needed; however, I am against big pharma advertising a magic pill for every little symptom people experience. But most importantly, I think it is dangerous to turn to medication as the answer for deep-seated issues that need to be addressed so that people can learn to manage their lives in more effective and healthy ways. All the medication does is numb the person to what they need to feel in order to heal and move forward.
References:
Rosenburn, M. (2012). How Big Pharma and the Psychiatric Establishment Drugged Up Our Kids. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/story/155459/how_big_pharma_and_the_psychiatric_establishment_drugged_up_our_kids
Hagopian, J. (2015). The Evils of Big Pharma Exposed. Retrieved from http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-evils-of-big-pharma-exposed/5425382
Gilchrist, C. L. (Producer). (2008). Generation RX: Resisting the culture of overmedication [Video file]. Retrieved from the Films On Demand database.
Shulz, K. (2004, August). Did antidepressants depress Japan? The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/magazine/did-antidepressants-depress-japan.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
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