Whose Body Is It, Anyway?
In the last post I laid out some alarming statistics about the results of the current health care system, especially in the USA. This information contributed to my decision to seek alternative treatment for cancer. The numbers are not merely opinion, and the studies can be easily accessed by anyone. Use the footnotes provided, or find your own trusted sources.
This time we'll take a look at one of the biggest businesses on the planet, the pharmaceutical industry, along with one organization's undue influence.
Big Business
The problems in U.S. healthcare may derive in part from the involvement of the $245-billion-per-year pharmaceutical industry in funding medical research and medical schools. The strong bias towards patented drugs as treatments for physical and mental problems is an outgrowth of the profit system. Corporations need to make money for their shareholders, and they do it however they can.
One of the grievous consequences of the drug-oriented system is its continual use of animals in cruel and unproven testing required by the Federal Drug Administration. Another is that patients have come to expect a plethora of drug-induced “side effects,” from nausea to cancer – and yet more drugs to try to counter them.
Since full deregulation of prescription drug advertising in the USA in 1997 (1), the explosive growth of medical advertising has led to the usual excesses in the corporate chase for consumer dollars. In some cases, “medical conditions” described in advertisements came exclusively from the imaginations of copywriters.
Whose Body Is It, Anyway?
If the dominant medical system were a brand of car with a bad reputation, it wouldn’t be such a problem for consumers. We could buy from a different manufacturer with better engineering. However, the dominant medical system, like other monopolies before it, has worked to drive alternatives to the fringes, or completely out of business in some cases.
In the 1970s the American Medical Association (A.M.A.)embarked on a campaign to discredit chiropractic. Doctors of chiropractic fought back and finally won in 1990. Now chiropractic – based on a completely different theory of disease than that espoused by the A.M.A. – is fully legitimate and frequently covered by insurance.
However, typical state medical laws still use language similar to the California Business and Professions Code Section 2052:
"Any person who practices or attempts to practice, or who advertises or holds himself or herself out as practicing, any system or mode of treating the sick or afflicted in this state, or who diagnoses, treats, operates for, or prescribes for any ailment, blemish, deformity, disease, disfigurement, disorder, injury, or other physical or mental condition of any person, without having at the time of so doing a valid, unrevoked, or unsuspended certificate as provided in this chapter, or without being authorized to perform such act pursuant to a certificate obtained in accordance with some other provision of law, is guilty of a misdemeanor."
In all states in the U.S., it is illegal to “practice medicine without a license.” While it is legal for health practitioners who are not MDs to use whatever methods they wish, they cannot legally diagnose or treat specific conditions recognized by the A.M.A. This in itself is not a problem. The difficulty for those seeking alternatives to the not-so-great existing system is that they will most often have to pay for the alternatives out of pocket. Federal and private insurance companies have strict guidelines regarding the types of practitioners and treatments they cover, and those guidelines – again, in typical monopoly fashion – are largely dictated by the A.M.A.
But all of these facts may well be seen as “symptoms” – not the underlying cause of the dis-ease in our health care system.
In the next post, we'll take a brief glance at the outmoded science that has led to the current health care system.
(1) Such advertising, now considered normal in the USA, is banned in Europe. See Cross, A., Life: A Medical Condition, BBC News.
This time we'll take a look at one of the biggest businesses on the planet, the pharmaceutical industry, along with one organization's undue influence.
Big Business
The problems in U.S. healthcare may derive in part from the involvement of the $245-billion-per-year pharmaceutical industry in funding medical research and medical schools. The strong bias towards patented drugs as treatments for physical and mental problems is an outgrowth of the profit system. Corporations need to make money for their shareholders, and they do it however they can.
One of the grievous consequences of the drug-oriented system is its continual use of animals in cruel and unproven testing required by the Federal Drug Administration. Another is that patients have come to expect a plethora of drug-induced “side effects,” from nausea to cancer – and yet more drugs to try to counter them.
Since full deregulation of prescription drug advertising in the USA in 1997 (1), the explosive growth of medical advertising has led to the usual excesses in the corporate chase for consumer dollars. In some cases, “medical conditions” described in advertisements came exclusively from the imaginations of copywriters.
Whose Body Is It, Anyway?
If the dominant medical system were a brand of car with a bad reputation, it wouldn’t be such a problem for consumers. We could buy from a different manufacturer with better engineering. However, the dominant medical system, like other monopolies before it, has worked to drive alternatives to the fringes, or completely out of business in some cases.
In the 1970s the American Medical Association (A.M.A.)embarked on a campaign to discredit chiropractic. Doctors of chiropractic fought back and finally won in 1990. Now chiropractic – based on a completely different theory of disease than that espoused by the A.M.A. – is fully legitimate and frequently covered by insurance.
However, typical state medical laws still use language similar to the California Business and Professions Code Section 2052:
"Any person who practices or attempts to practice, or who advertises or holds himself or herself out as practicing, any system or mode of treating the sick or afflicted in this state, or who diagnoses, treats, operates for, or prescribes for any ailment, blemish, deformity, disease, disfigurement, disorder, injury, or other physical or mental condition of any person, without having at the time of so doing a valid, unrevoked, or unsuspended certificate as provided in this chapter, or without being authorized to perform such act pursuant to a certificate obtained in accordance with some other provision of law, is guilty of a misdemeanor."
In all states in the U.S., it is illegal to “practice medicine without a license.” While it is legal for health practitioners who are not MDs to use whatever methods they wish, they cannot legally diagnose or treat specific conditions recognized by the A.M.A. This in itself is not a problem. The difficulty for those seeking alternatives to the not-so-great existing system is that they will most often have to pay for the alternatives out of pocket. Federal and private insurance companies have strict guidelines regarding the types of practitioners and treatments they cover, and those guidelines – again, in typical monopoly fashion – are largely dictated by the A.M.A.
But all of these facts may well be seen as “symptoms” – not the underlying cause of the dis-ease in our health care system.
In the next post, we'll take a brief glance at the outmoded science that has led to the current health care system.
(1) Such advertising, now considered normal in the USA, is banned in Europe. See Cross, A., Life: A Medical Condition, BBC News.
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Lisa
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Sep 17, 2012 05:35AM
We need to regulate these Big Pharma corp. again. They are making billions off their advertising and on top of that people people are losing their businesses, lively hoods and their lives. It's time to re-control them!
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Thank you so much for commenting, Lisa. I agree,it's time to raise awareness on these issues and re-regulate this out-of-control industry! It begins with each of us asking lots and lots of questions, especially when dealing with our own health or that of loved ones. Thanks for caring!
