I've just finished reading a book called Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre about how pharmaceutical corporations mislead doctors and harm patients. It was quite a shocking book. I would advise all of you to read it now, or visit the authors blog at www.badscience.net
it's not that they mislead them. it's more like other options of medication are possible but that those options are so cheap to make because there is no patent on it anymore that they are not suitable for a business model. for a pharmaceutical company to really make money is by selling the rights to other pharma companies to use their invention. they are always slightly tweaking the already existing medicine so they can get a new patent that they can sell again. that whole market is based upon selling patents. making the prize of their medicines rise and rise. but it still does what they say it does. it has to pass lots of test befor it's allowed to the public. and so do they not lie to you or the docter about what it they sell to you/him.
The crooked Drug companies don't like Generic drugs so they release a new product( which is actually the same thing) under a different name so they can overcharge for it. Once the generic version is out, they start the scam again. Since the medications are overpriced, the insurance cost shoots up and these two criminal organizations (insurance/pharmaceutical) made lots of money, pushing retired people to go back to work which is disgusting. As long as the unpatriotic Republicans are in control, those criminal behaviors will continue. So next election, vote Democrat only just to send those Conservative traitors a clear message.
it has to pass lots of test befor it's allowed to the public. and so do they not lie to you or the docter about what it they sell to you/him.
Actually a lot of the tests they do are badly conducted and misleadingly presented. If they can't make the stats look good, they don't bother publishing the trial. A good example is Vioxx.
It sometimes even has effects that are not noticed on the package, either because they weren't tested enough or because negative effects harm the sales; as long as the company can downplay any effect, make it look harmless, they will.
The problem I see is, as usually in such cases, capitalism and a company that stopped thinking about other humans. Medications are not actually bad, at least usually not; but the big companies get too many advantages compared to the small ones (like less strict tests to pass), so that concurrence gets really difficult.
Read it in a news article, where the, i dont know, some sort of spokesperson of alternative medicines in my country said that? I know, it's no usable source, but I'm not disinclined to believe that. I'm in no way a defendant of alternative medicines, out of a scientifical aspect; but when they are being disadvantaged only based on the rigorousity of tests, there's something going wrong.
He wasn't talking about medicines, he was talking about procedures. Just because he represents nonsense like homeopathy doesn't mean only lies come out of his mouth.
And whether he lies or not, it doesn't change that I am inclined to believe big companies buy and/or lobby advantages in their favour (just see the recent case of the European Union lobbyied by Monsanto and Syngentia to sell property rights on seed varieties).
