Drugs, Drugs the Magical Fruit…or so you thought
By Krystal
GWS R1B 1-26-2011
For this short essay I chose to watch and analyze the documentary “Big Bucks, Big Pharma.” The documentary discusses the role of pharmaceutical companies in United States economy, politics and culture. In the United States the term drugs, particularly illegal drugs, tends to have a negative connotation that stigmatizes said drug users. However, there are some drugs that are left out of this condescending dialogue and those would be the legal or regulated drugs. Consequently by reserving the term ‘drugs’ to only certain illegal drugs the more prevalent drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, chocolate and tea (just to name a few) do not get the same stigma as say cocaine, heroin or marijuana. Pharmaceutical drugs are another sector of the drug umbrella that do not have as common as a household name status the regulated or legal drugs previously mentioned. However, the difference is that these drugs are often portrayed as highly evolved Western medicine when in fact they could be said by some to be the most used and abused drugs around.
Paracelsus said that, “Everything is a poison. What differentiates a poison and a remedy is the dose.” While talking about drugs, the physical body is where they are known to most obviously have a healing quality or a disintegrating quality. What is not so obvious is the role that the drugs play in affecting fantastic economics, politics and culture in parts of life that are not honestly protected by legal statutory when exploited by uninhibited capital gain. Pharmaceutical drugs have people reaching for new prescription drugs through consumer advertising mixed with pathologizing. In other words, doctors and pharmaceutical companies have the power to influence what is deemed by society as abnormal health by creating various disorders and disabilities. According to “Big Bucks, Big Pharma”, 90% of clinical studies are funded by drug companies who ironically also set the research and advertising agenda.
The patient-doctor power relationship is not unlike the perceived female-male gender power dynamic. On a larger yet similar scale, the consumer-pharmaceutical company also has power dynamics that depends on who has access the resources needed to create and distribute socially accepted knowledge. These resources include but are not limited to: money, hegemonic advertising (“being considered the norm in mass media”), academic research, and laws to back all these things up in the courtroom. With laws enacted that depict the corporation as having the same rights of an individual ‘human’ person it is hard to fathom David beating Goliath. When corporations that have their primary goal as making money, human health tends to take a back seat in a speeding car with broken seat belts and no law enforcement. It is the same human life vulnerability that makes us so keen on listening to the pharmaceutical companies and doctors who through their commercials appeal to what the documentary labels as an emotional, social consumer bond. In ads for Claritin, Viagra and Prozac people who consume these drugs are the “lifestyle portraits of healthy vibrant lives” not people with medical conditions that stem from a multitude of possibilities. Consumers, who have a wide range of health needs, are not encouraged to research their self health but are encouraged to buy and consume mindlessly because that is profitable business.
When honestly discussing health, culture, environmental issues the quick-fix and the quick buck are usually not the best answers. These issues require a level of commitment and mindfulness that is often times lacking when a group or company is pre-set to astronomically increasing profit equations. The reason it is so important to recognize discrimination in not only gender roles but also doctor-patient and company-consumer is so that living individuals can participate in these ever-shifting power dynamic dialogues and practices. Perhaps then the equation will include health and happiness and not just profits.
Interesting! I find the pharmaceutical drug market fascinating, I want to check this documentary out. But I have to say that as much as we want to make Big Pharma and psychiatry out as the bad guy, they're sort of all we've got in terms of a legal and regulated market for psychoactive drugs. However bad they are, they're better than drug cartels. We just need to figure out how to improve the system.
ReplyDeleteI really like what you say about the power dynamic between patient/doctor. I don't think that dynamic needs to go away, but it needs to change. On the one hand, it's unrealistic for everyone to have the medical drug knowledge necessary to choose which drugs and amounts are right for them; on the other hand can we trust doctors to have our best interests in mind? It's more complicated than capitalism can handle. How do we reward doctors for taking the time to get to know their patient and honestly inform them and prescribe for them? How much discretion should doctors have in prescribing drugs of abuse while respecting the autonomy of the patient? Is it ethical to advertise drugs to people in the first place? All this stuff needs to be regulated better.
Another thing is how "90% of clinical studies are funded by drug companies who ironically also set the research and advertising agenda." This is hardly surprising because who else would be doing clinical studies of drugs? We don't live in a country where drug research is subsidized, or even really regulated for scientific honesty. In my opinion, the FDA should be split up into a food administration and a drug administration, and the latter should be working on these issues and finding the line between minimizing the harms of drugs and expanding the benefits.