Have you noticed the increase of drug company advertising directly targeting
consumers? By 2011 eMarketer predicts the total pharmaceutical advertising spend
will grow to a whopping $40 billion a year.
Pharmaceutical companies are spending billions of dollars a year to spread the
word about drug therapies formulated to treat everything from ingrown toenails
and insomnia to high cholesterol and depression. How many billions? Well, by
2011 eMarketer predicts the total pharmaceutical advertising spend will grow to
a whopping $40 billion. That’s still three year away, but the evidence of Big
Pharma’s plans to drug America is easily discerned by watching just about any channel on |
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television today. Recently, I was watching a TV commercial for a self-proclaimed
breakthrough drug I was encouraged to “ask my doctor about.” As
I was watching the ad all I could think about was how difficult
it must be to produce an appealing promotion for a product that
has so many devastating side effects. You’d have to be a
marketing genius to peddle some of these drugs. One
“pharmaceutical therapy” that aims to help people with insomnia
sleep better at night, for example, comes with a laundry list of
possible side effects, including but not limited to hives,
difficulty breathing, swelling of the face, lips, tongue or
throat, impaired thinking, slowed reactions and drowsiness. The
commercial admitted the drug can be habit-forming and stopping
usage may cause withdrawal symptoms. By taking this drug, then,
you can get a good night’s sleep but may wake up with hives and
swollen eyes, unable to breathe or drive to work. Wow! Do you
still feel you should call your doctor right away? If you do
then the marketing team did an award-winning job with its
campaign.
It may surprise you to learn that some drug companies are
spending more each year on advertising and marketing than on
research and development of new products. Roughly $60 billion
dollars is spent yearly on illegal drugs in the United States,
according to U.S. government estimates. These publicly-traded
legal drug dealers, however, are now surpassing illegal drug
revenues. Obviously, there are big bucks in the sale of legal
drugs. Eli Lilly, maker of Prozac, for example, is a $61 billion
company that sells its products in over 140 countries. And who
hasn’t seen a commercial about Viagra? This drug is made by drug
giant Pfizer, a $170 billion company. Forbes magazine reported
that depression drugs like
Eli Lilly’s Cymbalta show a sales increase in 2004 up a whopping
727 percent!
The Rise of Anti-Depressants
Pastors, church leaders, counselors and parents need to be aware
of the dangerous and ever increasing medicating of America.
Recently, we were meeting about our church’s effectiveness in
outreach and street ministries. One of the team leaders offered
an observation on the use of prescribed medications among people
they were meeting on the streets. What the team discovered was
an “obvious increase” in people taking psychotropic,
antipsychotic, and psychoactive drugs. All are mind altering.
“Why the increase,” you ask? Because the major drug
pharmaceutical companies, networking with the so-called health
care experts were able to get depression labeled as an
“official” disease.
There is major money available to doctors, psychiatrists,
hospitals, clinics and drug companies in the wake of this
movement. All they need to do is find somebody who’s depressed.
Did you know that psychiatrists have the right to prescribe
drugs, hospitalize patients and treat people against their will?
In America, being a “little depressed” seems to equate to a
diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder. Of course, Bipolar Disorder makes
health care cash registers sing! It seems even people who
question their purpose in life are targets for prescription
drugging. In 1937 noted psychiatrist Sigmund Freud wrote, “The
moment a man begins to question the meaning and value of life he
is sick.”
The Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. For
some, huge profits have opened the door for corruption and
mammon temptation. In 2006, for example, Schering-Plough, best
known as the maker of allergy drugs Claritin and Clarinex,
settled a lawsuit with the Massachusetts U.S. Attorneys’ Office.
The company paid $435 million (that’s a $180 million criminal
fine and another $255 million to resolve civil aspects of the
investigation). What was Schering-Plough’s violation? The
company was charged with allegedly providing payments to managed
care organizations and doctors to entice the purchase of its
products and for giving false pricing information that would
defraud the Medicaid program. In November 2007, Merck & Company
agreed to settle roughly 27,000 lawsuits relating to the pain
killer Vioxx, a drug found to cause heart attacks, strokes and
other serious side effects, for nearly $5 billion!
Hooked on Legal Drugs
Those are not the only such troubling incidents. In October, the
FBI raided Florida-based WellCare Health Plans of Tampa looking
for possible Medicare fraud. According to The St. Pete Times
Staff Writer Kris Hundley, “For the past two years, analysts
have been asking how fast-growing WellCare Health Plans of Tampa
has been able to make so much money running government health
plans for the poor and elderly.” It looks like big profits red
flagged them and the investigation is ongoing.
How do folks get on legal drugs? Consider Austin, a 29-year-old
man who passed out at his job one day. One of his coworkers
called medics, who examined him and wanted to take him to the
hospital. Because he had no insurance, he resisted. They
medicated him and he woke up in a hospital’s psychiatric ward
four days later. As he was coming out of whatever medication
they gave him, he told me doctors asked questions about his
mental health and family medical history. (Psychiatrists don’t
do “talk therapy” according to Dr. Peter R. Breggin, M.D. and
author of Toxic Psychiatry, but rather ask questions only to
determine drug treatment.)
Austin told me he couldn’t focus on their questions because of
the medication. He said the doctor at the hospital diagnosed him
“bipolar.” So the physician prescribed him “appropriate”
medications including Prozac, Abilify and two others that he
couldn’t remember. I asked him if they ever explained the side
effects of these medications. His answer was “no.” That’s
amazing considering these medications can be fatal with
consequences including heart attacks, impotence, tremors,
permanent tics and suicidal thoughts. When Austin asked the
doctor how long he would have to take these medications, he was
told, “for the rest of your life.” Can you imagine that? These
are medications that cost over $400 a month – each. No wonder
Medicare is breaking our country while drug companies get rich.
I asked Austin if he had ever been depressed and he said
“never.” The concern for him now is the deadly danger if he
abruptly stops taking these drugs without professional guidance.
Targeting Our Children
Many of us are unaware of the risks of prescription
mind-altering drugs and others have become dependent on them.
Even our nations’ children are targets. Most psychotropic
prescriptions for children, like Ritalin, for instance, are
given for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Others are given
antidepressants. The Journal of the American Medical Association
in February 2000 released a study showing a 50 percent increase
in prescribing antidepressants such as Prozac to preschoolers.
In some cases, taking medicine is required for attending school
and those who don’t comply can be dismissed or removed from the
home by the state. Talk about clout! Even state-run foster care
programs are out of control.
The Florida Statewide Advocacy Council released a report that
revealed more than 55 percent of children in Florida State
Foster Care are taking psychotropic medication, including
infants and toddlers! A pediatrician had not even examined more
than 40 percent of those taking medications. Of the 5 percent
that had been examined, their diagnosis included subjective
“adjustment disorders” such as bed-wetting. The investigation
concluded, “Unnecessary dispensing of psychotropic medication
remains a threat…” Side effects of these mind-altering drugs
include decreased blood flow to the brain, cardiac arrhythmias,
disruption of growth hormone, weight loss, permanent
neurological tics, psychosis, depression, insomnia, social
withdrawal, suicidal tendencies and decreased learning
abilities. The Food and Drug Administration has also reported a
possible increased risk of suicidal thinking and attempts in
children treated with the antidepressant drug Paxil.
To be sure, the side effects of these drugs are scary. Elli
Lilly warns, “In clinical studies, antidepressants increased the
risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents,
and young adults with depression and other psychiatric
disorders.” Could the instances of school killings be linked to
the use of these types of drugs? A simple search on the Internet
links many school shooters using antidepressant drugs like
Prozac, Ritalin, Zoloft, Luvox, Paxil and others.
Reviving the War on Drugs
Soon physicians will be targeting those who “someday will get
depressed.” Yes, they are trying to determine your inclination
to depression. Are you a candidate for a bad day, unhappy
feelings or anger? Then you can bet you will soon be prescribed
some drug to “control those symptoms of a mental health
disease.” Does drug therapy work? According to a Duke University
scientific study of 56 severely depressed people, three
30-minute workouts each week brought relief equal to drug
treatment.
Remember the U.S. War on Drugs of the 80s? What happened to
First Lady Nancy Reagan’s slogan that she championed, “Just say
no?” Folks, we have entered a dangerous medication minefield.
Consider the increase of autism among our nation’s children. Is
this dreaded malady the side effects of vaccinations? Many think
so, but this isn’t exactly a new problem. It’s just one that is
getting bigger as attitudes shift. In the 70s “the practice of
drugging children has no sound basis in law, medicine, or social
policy. As such, it represents an ominous step along the
Orwellian continuum of social control through psychotechnology,”
said Doctor Larry Brown in an article posted in Psychiatric News
in 1975. By the 80s views had changed. Pediatrician Martin Baren
said, “If a child has an attention disorder, then he has a
chemical problem and needs Ritalin as much as a diabetic needs
insulin.”
The drugging of America is a serious matter. What does the
future hold if we continue down this path? Parents will allow
“mental health professionals” to use drug therapy on their
children, opening the door to devastating permanent side
effects. Schools will outsource problem children for drug
therapy treatment without their parent’s permission. Millions of
our children will end up on legal drugs unable to enter society,
work and be productive citizens. People will be deceived into
believing they must take drugs to avoid “inherited biochemical
brain imbalances.” Multiplied millions of elderly will be
“control drugged” in nursing homes. Those in psychiatry and
related medical fields will become ever dependent on the revenue
from prescribing drugs to keep their jobs. Others will suffer
permanent brain damage from the side effects of drug therapy.
Unhappiness will be diagnosed as a treatable mental sickness
through legal drug therapy. There will be an increase in
gruesome murders caused from the side effects of legal drug use.
Malpractice lawsuits will cost the health care industry billions
and Medicare will go bankrupt. And finally no trust for the
health care industry as a whole, including thousands of good
physicians and health care workers that really want to help
people.
