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Informed Americans are quickly learning about the evils of Big Government and the danger it represents to the traditional family, but very few know about the relationship between Big Government and the Big Pharmaceutical Companies.
Big Pharma is a huge, out of control special interest group that derives its power and influence from its partner, Big Government. You see, government bureaucrats profit from promoting Big Pharma, because of the legions of lobbyists employed to help write the laws, the regulators who intensely review and follow every drug development and the politicians who are always looking for a big campaign donor.
On the far left, folks like Michael Moore attack this arrangement as capitalism, but really it is socialist corporatism-a partnership between Big Government and Big Pharma to promote the interests of each other at the costs of anyone who gets in the way.
For example, Big Pharma is constantly normalizing obscure health programs to the masses in order to create new markets with a strong demand for a new drug. One example of this is the GlaxoKlineSmith promotion of ‘Restless Leg Syndrome’, something no one had ever heard of before but which is now suddenly a common ailment. Some Doctors refer to this phenomenon as ‘disease mongering’.
Entire industries have been developed on ‘created’ disorders, such as ‘generalized anxiety disorder’, ‘major depressive disorder,’ ‘panic disorder,’ ‘acute social phobia’ and ‘social anxiety disorder.’ Even if you’re just shy there’s a drug for you (it’s called Paxil), in the event that you suffer from ‘debilitating shyness.’
Other Big Pharma tactics will include repackaging a product as distinctly new in order to increase revenues and gain new patents (allowing for competition free sales). One example is the creation of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD). The symptoms for PMDD include: irritability, sadness, sudden mood changes, tension, bloating, and breast tenderness. By the way, these symptoms coincide with the onset of menstruation. That used to be referred to as Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) but now it’s a disorder with its own drug, Sarafem. Sarafem is actually Prozac repackaged in pink.
A similar development occurred when the patents for Prilosec and Lipitor were up against the expiration of their patent protection; in the case of Prilosec the successor was Nexium and Lipitor itself was a follow-on to Mevacor, Pravachol and Zocor, all drugs designed to lower LDL cholesterol levels.
And guess what? When a drug does work, drug companies will coordinate with the government to lower the guidelines for what are acceptable levels of, in this case, cholesterol. By constantly changing the standard, drug companies have a reason to continually generate new, expensive drugs that are then approved (with monopoly rights) for sale to the public.
The next time you visit your MD, take a look around the office. If it’s anything like the Doctor’s offices I’ve been in recently, you’ll find drugs everywhere with Big Pharma names, along with pens, calendars, notebooks and a wide assortment of goodies that drug company reps leave behind.
If there is any doubt that Americans have been bought and sold by Big Pharma, consider that by 2006 over one million children under the age of 18 were on anti-depressants. How did civilization make it before anti-depressants? Will we make it with them?
