Truth in Media
Big Pharma, the FDA, and Medical Propaganda
Big Pharma exerts a powerful influence over the media, doctors, and all of us. They employ many tactics and strategies in order to keep making hundreds of millions of dollars by withholding valuable information from the public. The information they refuse to make public is about the deadly effects of certain medications that are heavily prescribed by doctors.
Ironically, there are more people working to approve drugs than there are people watching the effects of those drugs once they hit the market. The FDA is supposed to be working on behalf of the consumer to protect them from dangerous pharmaceuticals, however in a lot of cases the FDA works with the pharmaceutical companies to get drugs approved whether they are life-threatening or not. The people who work at the FDA should not be allowed to go to work for the pharmaceutical companies. That should be illegal, but those who stand to profit from it believe that it’s acceptable.
Many years before a new drug hits the market the propaganda process begins. It usually starts with publications made by advertisement agencies that work in conjunction with pharmaceutical companies. These articles are published in reputable medical journals, and they use terms such as ‘promising results’. The drug companies do not allow researches to publish negative results. So if the results don’t look good, they are simply buried.
Eventually the media picks up the ‘scientific evidence’ and begins to broadcast it, and the consumer’s opinion about the new drug is influenced long before that medication is ready to be prescribed.
Many pharmaceutical representatives are sales people who have no medical or pharmaceutical experience. They are trained to wine and dine doctors and their staff in order for them to participate in educational sessions about new medications.
The pharmaceutical companies not only cater lunch or take everybody out to expensive dinners; they also offer models and supplies that can make the doctor’s office seem more prosperous than it is and they provide free samples or coupons for the patients.
When a drug only benefits a small percentage of the population, the FDA subsidizes the creation of that drug since there’s no profit to be made from it. These drugs are called ‘orphan drugs’. Big Pharma sometimes prescribes them for other conditions and makes a huge profit, though. Is this fair? Watch this now.
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