Corruption in Pharmaceutical companies
Johnson & Johnson marketed 'Risperdal' (tradename for Risperidone) using a strategy that downplayed the drug's side-effects, and provided kickback payments to nursing homes, but more importantly encouraged off-label use in children for behavioural disorders/autism and in elderly for dementia/sleeping against the explicit instructions from FDA. Ultimately, the fines for this conduct cost J&J $2.2 billion but they made $18 billion in profits from this drug alone and it enabled the then Risperidal sales manager, Alex Gorsky, to become current CEO of J&J but escaping individual culpability for devising such a strategy!
I agree corruption in Pharma is an big issue but corruption exists in every type of industry. Pharma companies run to make profit and that can lead to conflict of interest: money versus people's health/lives. This lead to adoption of methods like over diagnosis, and off label use by compromised doctors and unnecessarily taking pharmaceutical route for treatment etc. However, Pharma does some good things as well (even mentioned by the speaker).
The first lecture of any medical school says that "Pharma are corrupt" as they follow the money. Scientists and medical doctors need to read the papers published in public journals carefully, and ignore all papers that are funded by pharma. This could keep the science and pharma separate.
In my view, modern science is essential to understand the cause of illness and ways to treat it. And this cannot be replaced by homeopathy (fake as declared by WHO), ayurveda, unani, siddha, naturopathy (none of these are tested scientifically and some use heavy metals in their medicine which can cause cancer etc). However, yoga is good for physical wellbeing and meditation or mindfulness is good for mental wellbeing.
In summary, it is always important to discuss with your doctor to understand the side-effects, as well as gauge the risk-to-benefit for each drug on case-by-case basis. Talking therapies (like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), meditation, mindfulness, and yoga can supplement medicine. If these supplementary methods are implemented regularly (daily without fail) and they are working well for someone, then medicine can be reduced but this has to be decided by a qualified doctor.
You might find this online course very relevant to these questions.
Online course: Medicating for Mental Health: Judicious Use of Psychiatric Drugs
Please watch the above (edited) video that covers Dr. John Rengen Virapen, Ex Director of Eli Lilly, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. This comes after his retirement, after working for 35 Years in that company. He now speaks out on the many crimes Big Pharma was and is responsible for (and he himself also participated in). Unfortunately, many of its crimes go unnoticed by public as pharma companies enjoy the unethical protection from its big allies: the mainstream media, the FDA and governments.
The first lecture of any medical school says that "Pharma are corrupt" as they follow the money. Scientists and medical doctors need to read the papers published in public journals carefully, and ignore all papers that are funded by pharma. This could keep the science and pharma separate.
In my view, modern science is essential to understand the cause of illness and ways to treat it. And this cannot be replaced by homeopathy (fake as declared by WHO), ayurveda, unani, siddha, naturopathy (none of these are tested scientifically and some use heavy metals in their medicine which can cause cancer etc). However, yoga is good for physical wellbeing and meditation or mindfulness is good for mental wellbeing.
In summary, it is always important to discuss with your doctor to understand the side-effects, as well as gauge the risk-to-benefit for each drug on case-by-case basis. Talking therapies (like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), meditation, mindfulness, and yoga can supplement medicine. If these supplementary methods are implemented regularly (daily without fail) and they are working well for someone, then medicine can be reduced but this has to be decided by a qualified doctor.
Online course: Medicating for Mental Health: Judicious Use of Psychiatric Drugs
Link: www.edx.org/course/medicating-mental-health-judicious-use-colgatex-psycrx-0
PS: This main video presented in this article has been edited mainly for brevity. Here is the video link to the full version of the talk
PS: This main video presented in this article has been edited mainly for brevity. Here is the video link to the full version of the talk
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