Are We a Culture of the Worried Well?

Are we a culture of the worried well?

There were over half a trillion dollars in prescription drug sales in the United States in the year 2006 alone. To bring this into perspective, one trillion dollars is one million million dollars; therefore the citizens of the United States collectively spent nearly half a million million dollars in 2006 on medication alone. According to the United States Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States at the end of the year 2006 was roughly three million people. Thus, the average American citizen spent 166,666 dollars on prescription drugs in the year 2006 alone. The numbers are astounding, and they will continue to skyrocket as long as people believe that something is wrong with them and big pharmaceutical companies make the same people believe that medicine will be the solution to their problems.

The first step for many pharmaceutical companies in developing a relationship with a potential customer is branding. The pharmaceutical drug representatives can be seen as the Santa Claus of the prescription drug world. They've got everything from sample drug packets to Viagra or Cialis branded magnets, pens and notepads. Aside from the branded products in doctors' offices and hospitals, the American population is now also being overexposed to drug advertisements showing people living healthy vibrant lives. Not until a quick incomprehensible segment at the end of the commercial is there a mention of the side effects. Patients have begun going to the doctor thinking that something is wrong with them and walking out with a prescription they may not truly need. The mass increase in new patients has brought with it an increase in adverse drug reactions. In fact, adverse drug reactions are the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. In the past year there were over 100,000 deaths and over 1.5 million people hospitalized due to their reactions to a prescribed drug (Big Bucks, Big Pharma). The bottom line is these commercials paint an incomplete picture of the drugs they are advertising.

"I am committed to practicing medicine in the best interest of my patients and on the basis of the best available evidence, rather than on the basis of advertising or promotion. I therefore pledge to accept no money, gifts, or hospitality from the pharmaceutical industry; to seek unbiased sources of information and not rely on information disseminated by drug companies; and to avoid conflicts of interest in my practice, teaching, and/or research." This is the pledge taken by doctors on the "Drug Free Practitioners" list. This list was initiated by an activist group called "No Free Lunch," directed by Dr. Robert Goodman (nofreelunch.org). The health care providers on the list have agreed to be completely "Drug company free."

Why such a drastic step against the influence of the big drug companies? Well there is a growing question of whether or not many of the new drugs on the market today are actually better than the existing products. In testing, many of the new drugs do not actually have to make a