The source of this blog is a Scottish
General Practitioner, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick. What he says is very
true and I would agree with him. He states that medicine today is
heading in the wrong direction with over-diagnosis and
over-treatment. In other words, polypharmacy is becoming a massive
problem.
This is driven mainly by the
pharmaceutical industry – an industry that wants to see the entire
population of the world taking medication every day and forever. He
clearly says that the industry has grabbed hold of medical research
and twisted it to their own ends.
I would caution that in reading his blog, many spellings are not American, but British spellings. He
quotes an article from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and adds
comments to avoid copyright quarrels. I will encourage you to read
his blog, as I will summarize for my understanding. Dr. Kendrick
says this about the BMJ - they are the only major journal that seems
keen to criticize the industry.
Evidence based medicine (EBM) was
opposite the drug industry in the 1990's. Doctors could ward off an
army of pharmaceutical representatives because their promotional
material was devoid of evidence. About the turn of the century, the
drug industry realized that EBM was an opportunity rather than a
threat, and when published in a prestigious journal was worth more
than thousands of sales reps.
Today, without evidence, there is no
seat at the guideline table. This is now the elephant in the room
because the drug industry controls and funds most research. The drug
industry and EBM have set about legitimizing illegitimate diagnoses
and then widening drug indications. Today doctors can prescribe a
pill for every ill.
The 66 percent increase in prescription
in one decade in England does not reflect a true increase in burden
of illness or an ageing population, just polypharmacy supposedly
based on evidence. The drug industry’s corporate mission is to
make us all sick, regardless of how well we feel.
Clinical research in now corrupt and
the promotion is passed off as postgraduate education. I suspect
that medical schools will be the next area for expansion to recruit doctors in the formative years. Then
when they graduate, they will promote polypharmacy.
Dr. Kendrick says we are at a crisis
point. Medical research today is almost beyond redemption. I know
he is talking about England, but this applies to the United States as
well and the drug industry has bought their way into most research
and is strongly influencing doctors in their prescribing habits.
When we have the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists
training the drug reps how to promote drugs more effectively, most
officers of the ADA and AACE having large conflicts of interest as
well as many of our doctors getting paid for speaking, and promoting
different medications by the drug industry, what are we to think.
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