Advil, Aleve, Tylenol, Benadryl, Sudafed, Claritin, Nyquil. The list seems to never end and they all achieve the same purpose. Forget wanting to feel better, America craves a binge drug to provide hope in the oh-so relentless cold that has been affecting them for longer than desired. Of the millions upon millions of people who daily rely on OTC and prescription drugs to suppress their cold, headache, heart burn etc, many do not understand the impact of drug consumerism on a broad scale. What is at stake? Is our need for over the counter drugs and prescriptions becoming customary instead of necessary? Should over the counter and prescription drugs be regulated more strictly? The adaptation of drugs like most staple products is a reliance that may be more intricate than previously acknowledged.
Since the discovery of herbal remedies to treat wounds and other illnesses since the beginning of human existence, adaptation techniques to cure ailments have been crucial to protect the well being and sustenance of physical and mental health. As shown by recordings that suggest the presence of herbal remedies by early humans and then the development of medicine by ancient societies such as the Egyptians and Greeks, the need for gluttonous consumption of inessential medicine has captured the eyes of society. Although vital medicines to treat important diseases and viruses have been used in the continuing of population growth and health efficiently, the foundation for excessive medicinal refinement has ironically caused the production of niche markets for seemingly comforting purposes. Beginning with Romans, who provided sage as medical treatment for emotional purposes as early as 98 AD, claiming that it was a healer for the spirit, providers ...
... middle of paper ...
...onsumer. If a substitute for marijuana were available, which would not cause impariment, it would be logical to provide a substance that does not adversely affect the judgment of an individual. Similarly, substitutes could be found for other dangerous OTC or prescription drugs with the use of generic products, which would reduce the cost to individuals and taxpayers alike.
Ultimately, our obsession with the medicine industry only serves to diminish our oppurtunity to be healthy and appropriatley assess medical obligations if misuse of drugs continues to occur. Although we are attracted to the notion of bettering ourselves, we are hindering progression at an alarming rate with the continually growing dependence on the industry. However, what is most sinister is that we our decieving ourselves into thinking medication benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Feeling sick yet?
Prescription and pharmaceutical drug abuse is beginning to expand as a social issue within the United States because of the variety of drugs, their growing availability, and the social acceptance and peer pressure to uses them. Many in the workforce are suffering and failing at getting better due to the desperation driving their addiction.
Dr. John Abramson’s book Overdosed America debunks the myths about the excellence of American medicine. Abramson backs up this claim by closely examining research about medicine, closely examining the unpublished details submitted by drug manufacturers to the FDA, and discovering that the unpublished data does not coincide with the claims made about the safety and effectiveness of commonly used medicines. Abramsons purpose is to point out the flaws of the pharmaceutical industry in order to warn the readers about the credibility of the drugs they are buying. Given the critical yet technical language of the book, Abramson is writing to an audience that may include academic physicians as well as those who want to learn about the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry.
Mathews, Holly F. "Introduction: A Regional Approach and Multidisciplinary Persepctive." Herbal and Magical Medicine: Traditional Healing Today. Ed. James Kirkland, Holly F. Mathews, C. W. Sullivan, III, and Karen Baldwin. Durham: Duke UP, 1992. 1-13. Print.
In Melody Peterson’s “Our Daily Meds” , the history of marketing and advertising in the pharmaceutical industry is explored. The first chapter of the book, entitled “Creating disease”, focuses on how major pharmaceutical companies successfully create new ailments that members of the public believe exist. According to Peterson, the success that these drug manufacturers have experienced can be attributed to the malleability of disease, the use of influencial people to promote new drugs, the marketing behind pills, and the use of media outlets.
"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system is not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in order to cure their ailments. For instance, they may present symptoms that are perfectly harmless, and lead potential citizens to believe that, because of these symptoms, they are "sick" and in need of medication.
The United States of America accounts for only 5% of the world’s population, yet as a nation, we devour over 50% of the world’s pharmaceutical medication and around 80% of the world’s prescription narcotics (American Addict). The increasing demand for prescription medication in America has evoked a national health crisis in which the government and big business benefit at the expense of the American public.
Doctors work under intense pressure, and if a pill could fix a patient’s problems than many saw nothing wrong with that. What exacerbated the problem was that many hospitals also changed their modus operandi with regards to treatment. In some hospitals, “doctors were told they could be sued if they did not treat pain aggressively, which meant with opiates (95). However once the patient became addicted and could no longer get their prescription legally refilled, the drug dealers saw their chance. What is surprising is the fact that pharmaceutical companies acted in the same manner as drug dealers. Both sides did not care about the end user, and the problems they would have to deal with after using what was given to them. Their motive was purely to profit as much as possible, and they did not care about who would get hurt as a result of their
More than often, American’s argue that if we have the technology to gain access to these “miracle meds”, then we should take advantage of it. To receive an opposing view, the National Institute of Drug Abuse asked teens around America why they think prescription drugs are overused, and the results were shocking; 62%: “Easy to get from parent's medicine cabinets”, 51%: “They are not illegal drugs”, 49%: “Can claim to have prescription if caught”, 43%: “They are cheap”, 35%: “Safer to use than illegal drugs”, 33%: “Less shame attached to using”, 32%: “Fewer side effects than street drugs”, 25%: “Can be used as study aids”, and 21%: “Parents don't care as much if caught”. I believe the major problem here isn’t the medication, but instead the fact that our nation is extremely uninformed on the “do’s and dont’s” of prescription medication. When “the United States is 5 percent of the world’s population and consumes 75 percent of the the world's prescription drugs” (CDC), there is a problem present, no matter the reason. Clearly, many critics believe the breathtaking amount of pills we consume in America is simply for the better good, but tend to forget the effects that are soon to follow.
In America, it has become a battle to earn a high paying job to cope with the expenses of a typical American. It has become even more of a battle for some people to afford medical prescriptions to keep healthy. Health becomes a crucial issue when discussed among people. No matter what, at one point or another, everyone is going to stand as a victim of the pharmaceutical industry. The bottom line is Americans are paying excessive amounts of money for medical prescriptions. Health-Care spending in the U.S. rose a stunning 9.3% in 2002, which is the greatest increase for the past eleven years. (Steele 46) Many pharmaceutical companies are robbing their clients by charging extreme rates for their products.
Third is performing reckonable accident errors that have been impaired on patients whereas the amount also was listed at $1.7 Million from 2008.Fourth the U.S. reckless spends about 100-200 billion a year in curing uninsured patients. Fifth, the most commonly talked about drug of all is tobacco, which amounts to about 96 billion. Healthcare not only does give patients the importance of everything but we also have technology along with so many life-enhancing benefits is ridiculously high and is way over the line. Which is why so many of our medical learners are not being trained enough to understand the importance of procuring and delivering prescription drugs that have cost about 1.3 billion dollars. The Question we should ask ourselves this how is it going to look when those are in need of a serious medical issue of having what’s required of them to take in order to ease their pain.
We live in a world where being medicated has become a societal norm. Modern health care practices have set the stage for the proliferation of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs by pharmaceutical manufacturers. Some of these practices include the emergence of managed care organizations (MCOs), the legalization of DTCA of prescription drugs, the emergence of the Internet as an alternative promotional channel, the increased desire by patients to become more involved in their own health care decisions, the disillusionment with traditional medicine, and the rise of ‘alternative’ medicine, to name a few. There is an ongoing debate as to the ultimate harm or benefit of this relatively recent practice of pharmaceutical manufacturers to direct their promotional efforts away from the physician and towards the consumer.
The United States spends more per capita on health care than any other country, with the percentage of gross domestic product dedicated to health care doubling from 9% in 1980 to 18% in 2011(Kesselheim,). One of the contributors to health care inflation is prescription drugs. Pharmaceuticals account for about 10% of total health care costs, spending on pharmaceuticals is poised to swell in upcoming years as a result of the increasing prices of complex specialty medicines (Kesselheim). Name brand drugs are going to have to be set at higher prices, in order for pharmaceutical companies to receive a profit. If the patient has full coverage on a medication, there is a greater chance that medication will be taken, although it may not be
Many people don’t believe in medicine at all. The most commonly used treatment is prayer. Ordinary people relied on methods their parents and grandparents used, such as lucky charms, magic spells and herbal cures. Some of the herbal remedies are quite useful. The monks who looked after sick travellers in the monasteries were very skilled in using herbs.
It is also easy to see the American people’s infatuation with drugs by simply looking at our current number of prescriptions filled at pharmacies annually. An active data table hosted by The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation states that about four billion prescriptions are filled annually (Kaiser). This is enough prescriptions for every person in the country, children and adults, to have twelve each. Once a person is on a drug, it is often hailed as an immediate fix to the problem, but many don’t think or just don’t care about the long-term side effects it could hold.
When you are sick you take medicine, but there are many remedies for the same problems. The use of herbal remedies traces back to the Chinese in the use of Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well by a compiled book in China written back more than 2,000 years ago (Wachtel-Galor & Benzie, 2011). Modern medicine has roots that are more recent in the development and production of synthesize drugs (Wachtel-Galor & Benzie, 2011). The old generations took herbal remedies to improve their health, but now as time and people, progressed modern medicine comes on top. Herbal and modern medicines have good and bad points, but one has qualities that are more effective.