You all may not know the word ‘caduceus’, but upon seeing one—an image of two snakes wrapped around a winged rod—most would know it represents “all things medical”.
The Rise of Big Pharma
The symbol is derived from Greek mythology.
It represents the messenger god Hermes who actually didn’t have anything to do with medicine. Hermès was the patron of commerce and trade. In addition to thieves, liars, and gamblers. Ironic, right, because this is what modern medicine has devolved into-commerce and trade, spearheaded by thieves, liars, and gamblers, otherwise known as Big Pharma.
Before it became Big Pharma, the foundation of western pharmacology is based on the Silver or Magic Bullet theory developed in the 1900s. The theory is that drugs could be developed to work in human bodies to target a specific receptor. Just like a single powerful bullet fired from a gun acts to hit a specific target.
The innovator believed with this single target action, he could create perfect drugs to cure diseases with no danger of side effects.
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Big Pharma Calls the Shots
FDA drugs are approved when they are deemed safe and effective. Which means the benefits of taking the drug outweigh the risks. Somehow, they get clearance even if they come with a laundry list of side effects.
Side effects which are also called-and I believe this is a more apt-adverse events. They are unwanted or unexpected events or reactions to a drug.
Side effects run the gamut from minor irritations like peeing a lot or a runny nose to life-threatening crises. Such as cardiac events.
In the beginning, especially regarding antibiotic medicine, the magic bullet theory seemed invincible. And while it is true, precision medicine, that is providing the right treatment for the right patient at the right time, does indeed save lives. But precision medicine morphed into Big Pharma which drives the Western Medical Industrial Complex and it is out of control.
Big Pharma Hurts Drug Innovation
The reality is Big Pharma is actually less interested in developing these types of precision meds since they aren’t moneymakers. They don’t make money because one-time life saving medical interventions lack repeat customers. I wrote a poem about this concept; it goes like this:
Big Pharma’s Creed
Give me your diabetic, your heart failed, your obese, your anxious, your depressed and your pained. Send these desperate and tempest-tost souls to me, for then monthly, my coffers will be filled to the brim with trillions of gold pieces.
Regarding the myth of Good Pharma, the truth is Big Pharma has for a long time now been focused on profits over everything—from good medicine practices, to ethical research, to humane public health service duties—that it would take a miracle to get it on some sort of right course.
Case in point, the pharmaceutical industry spends tens of millions on advertising and marketing rather than on research and development. One stat I found for this fact is that the top 10 U.S.-based drug makers spent $47 billion on advertising and marketing.
It just ain’t right. I don’t know what else to say about this statistic, except maybe they should have to do something helpful first before they are allowed to sneak more of their pills into our daily lives as they spew more and more of these never-ending prescription ads down our throats.
US Healthcare Needs Help
A 2017 healthcare survey of 11 developed countries found the US healthcare system to be the most expensive and worst-performing in terms of health access, efficiency, and equity.
Big Pharma’s influence on our healthcare system means that 42 percent of adults over the age of 65 take five or more medications. Nearly 9 in 10 seniors say they take prescriptions. A recent poll finds that 66 percent of all adults in the United States take prescription drugs.
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Lemme ask you this then, why are Americans sicker than ever? I mean technically with all these good prescriptions floating around for the taking, shouldn’t we all be in like really, really, really good health?
How is it then that statistics indicate 60% of American adults live with a medical condition that doesn’t resolve? These are the preexisting or chronic conditions that the media refers to when talking about COVID. Further still, more than ½ of this 60% of Americans who have one chronic condition, have what we call in medicine, “multiple comorbidities.”?
Unhealthy US
America finds itself in the top 10 most unhealthy country in the world. It is the only non-European country to make the top 10 while health care spending reached $3.6 trillion in 2018 or $11,172 per person.
Here’s something to think about; America is a toxic obesogenic environment.
Our collective chronic medical conditions that slowly degraded our quality of life happened over a period of time at a level below the collective consciousness.
The reality is that our bodies will compensate for all the bad food, for all the extra fats, for all the empty calories, for all that extra liquor, for all that lack of sleep, for the extra stress. Our bodies compensate because they are machines, but eventually, the compensatory mechanisms wear out. And we break. Then we start down this road of getting one diagnosis on top of another.
Modern society is perilous; we race around the rat’s maze on our individualized hamster wheels kind of blindfolded, in order to fulfill life’s obligations but that almost always means—especially for the poor and for those who live in food deserts—that our health will be compromised and we will eventually end up on a lot of meds. In the end, until we change the paradigm, all roads lead back to Big Pharma
Learn about natural healing modalities in Part 2 of this post ‘How America Got so Unhealthy’
