Just had to share this amazing rant on the Pharmaceutical companies in the US versus Abroad. Utterly amazing explanation on why the US is so overly medicated, overly advertised, and overly sick. Great stuff! Check out the entire article.
“Oh yeah, it’s called advertising. The realization hit me like a brick that the don’t seem to advertise medication in countries without strict regulatory schemes. Is there a law against it? I don’t remember ever seeing medication advertised growing up, and although I haven’t watched much TV in France, I have looked at papers and magazines and I don’t think I’ve seen medication advertised there either. Whereas in the US, as you all know, you can barely turn around to take a shit without running into one of a hundred “it” medications that are being heavily marketed right now.So why are they advertising? Because the pharmaceutical companies exist to make money, and they can make a lot, because prices for brand-name prescription drugs are 35 to 55 percent lower in other industrialized countries than in the United States.……So we have a nice cycle: high prices –> advertising –> high demand –> need for regulation –> expensive regulatory scheme –> high prices…Or maybe it’s just all about American paternalism. People can’t be trusted to know what’s wrong with them and what they need! Well, yeah, when you fuck with their minds by selling health care and medication as a product, at a profit, it warps people’s desires, just like every other consumerist aspect of this culture. “http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2008/03/pharmacological.html