Prescription Drug Companies and Their “Benefits”

Alright, I’m a biased source. I am the first to admit it. I don’t like the drug companies. Maybe it’s because they were responsible for my Mother’s death via drug interaction/accidental overdose. Maybe it’s because insurance makes my medication and medication for millions of people overwhelmingly expensive every month. Maybe it’s because I hate taking my medication and if you’ve read my other blog posts on the topic or know me personally, you would know that already. Maybe it’s all three.

Anyway- I hate that many drugs have really bad side effects. I’m not talking about dry mouth or decreased appetite (though they are annoying and I do whine about them). I’m talking about medications that perform the exact opposite function that they were designed to do. Despite the FDA testing drugs harsher than many other nations in the world, backlogging progress, and jacking up the price from “lesser” drugs from Canada, we still have drugs on the market harming people everyday.

I’m tempted to copy and paste all of the article from the front page of the NYT online, but that would be extremely long and if you are interested, please check it out. Here is the permalink, so even if it gets archived, this article will still be available to you. However, I will include the 1st paragraph and what I found to be the most important aspects of the article for you to peruse.

A clinical trial of Zetia, a cholesterol-lowering drug prescribed to about 1 million people a week, failed to show that the drug has any medical benefits, Merck and Schering-Plough said on Monday…

…While Zetia lowers cholesterol by 15 percent to 20 percent in most patients, no trial has ever shown that it can reduce heart attacks and strokes — or even that it reduces the growth of the fatty plaques in arteries that can cause heart problems.

This trial was designed to show that Zetia could reduce the growth of those plaques. Instead, the plaques actually grew almost twice as fast in patients taking Zetia along with Zocor than in those taking Zocor alone…

…”This is as bad a result for the drug as anybody could have feared,” Dr. Nissen (the chairman of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic) said. Millions of patients may be taking a drug that has no benefits for them, raising their risk of heart attacks and exposing them to potential side effects, he said.

I just want the FDA to do a better job and I want the drug companies to perform better tests prior to release on the market. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable complaint, especially since I am a regular ‘client’ of the drug companies. I still don’t think it’s unreasonable, considering the fact that I am very biased against them, but I’m sure you all could let me know. Feel free to comment.

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With some reflection, I think that the doctors and we, the patients, may be the problem as well. If we weren’t so eager to solve problems with a pill, many problems could be averted. In this case, obviously the individuals cannot lower their cholesterol via diet and exercise if the drug is working against them and when they obviously need a cholesterol lowering drug. For these patients it is an unfortunate and grim fate that they befall. However, we shouldn’t let the drug companies get the best of us and actually request every drug we see on TV. The drug companies want us to believe we have any and all illnesses that they can claim to solve because they want you buying their prescription. The drug companies are a very biased source and will say just about anything to sell their wares. In other words advertising is getting the best of us, and it’s time we learned to tune the drug companies biased messages out.

“I need two people from ASO”

I was on the setup and cleanup crew for the Jimmy Eat World concert @ Creighton last night and I have something to say about the leadership.  I think that if you want a group of people to help, you should ask for the people, rather than incorrectly asking for a portion of the people.  This was exemplified last night when the CSU board kept asking for people who were in ASO to help.  While ASO had agreed to crew for the concert, they also picked up SEVERAL extra volunteers (myself included) to help them out.  So, every time ASO was asked to help… :shrug: I guess I could have opted out.  Technically they weren’t asking for crew-members, just ASO.  Why not just ask for the crew?  We are all wearing t-shirts for Fallapalooza that say “CREW” on them.  Anyway, I think that people should more carefully categorize each other. 

While I have multiple stories related to the concert, I have only one that I wanted to share now.

Ted, one of my friends, is a taller heavier guy with hair that runs all the way to his shoulders.  For some reason he reminds me a lot of my youngest brother Dominic, if Dominic were six years older.  He gets into an elevator w/ Melody.  Melody, previously a member of the Speech and Debate team, is not (to put it lightly) very intelligent and tends to get annoying as she will tell stories that last for ten minutes about nothing.  The elevator leaves and I am waiting for the next elevator ride to take my chair up to the next floor, but the elevator returns to the wrong floor (the one I am standing on) still fully loaded because Melody pushed the wrong button.  The people inside ask for directions (Melody asks, the rest look uncomfortable and awkward about asking) and the elevator looks to close again. 

Right before the door closes, Ted gets a look of realization on his face – “I’ll just get out here.  Thanks!”  He proceeds to climb over the furniture they have loaded into the elevator as Melody and others protest.  Ted sees me with the chair and hoists the chair that I am standing w/ into the elevator saying- “Here, now you have room for Nat’s.” 

Elevator closes and Ted says- “I just had to get out of that elevator!”  We walked back to the other work area laughing.

I guess I just found it interesting, because I still have managed to not interact w/ Melody very much, but even my new friends seem to end up trying to avoid her.

Highlights of the MANY comments- ”She just told me my hips are small, and that was awkward.”-Kim

:sees Melody massaging someone off to the side: “I don’t even know what’s going on!”-Julie 

”Maybe we could snowmobile over lakes, over dips and curves, through forests….”-Rob :goes off for another minute making fun of her ten minute snow mobile explanation:

”Who is she???”-Someone next to me