A couple weeks ago while making dinner a prescription drug advertisement aired and I heard something I don't remember ever hearing before. It said, "Ask your prescriber" if such and such drug is right for you. Not "your doctor," or even "your health care provider," but "your prescriber." I think drug ads on TV and other media targeted directly to consumers are awful and should not be allowed (the United States and New Zealand are the only developed nations that allow them), and this new terminology referring doctors as nothing more than a hoop that must be jumped through for people to get these often overpriced, unnecessary, and even dangerous drugs is a new low. To be clear, I think modern pharmaceutical companies have let their greed for money (illustrated by the fact that drug companies now spend more money on advertising than they do on research), along with a completely subservient FDA, have corrupted scientific medicine. If they were to reprioritize and base their decisions based on the science, that would have incredible benefits for their customers health, and probably be even more profitable in the long run. I think people see this problem with mainstream medicine, and is in part why they're turning to alternative medicine, which is almost completely junk, as like mainstream medicine it costs a lot of money, except there's little or no scientifically sound testing of the products, so you have no idea if you're spending money on something that simply does nothing, has a small positive effect, or is downright dangerous. Maybe the mainstream drug industry would agree to end direct to consumer ads, and focus more on the research side of developing and testing new drugs if Congress were to pass a bill regulating alternative medicine, so that alternative medicine drug sellers could no longer make any unsubstantiated claims they wanted as long as they below them they included the disclaimer "These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease." If they had to actually have rigorous scientific research supporting the claims they made, I think probably 90% or more of the alternative medicine industry would disappear overnight (good riddance!). And that, along with mainstream medicine cleaning up their act, would be one huge win-win-win.
Migraines
A few weeks ago I figured out that for the last few years I've been getting migraines. I did a google search and found that the distorted vision I get every once in awhile is an 'aura' that some migraine sufferers get prior to the actual migraine. Until I read about how they were related, I had never connected my occasional temporary distorted vision with the headaches the next day where it felt like my brain had come loose and was sliding into my skull whenever I tilted my head. Partly this is because these headaches, while painful, were not close to how painful I had always heard migraines were. Even now, I think the distorted vision of the aura is more unpleasant than the headaches the next day, since I can just take a couple aspirin to relieve the headache, but there's not a lot I can do for the vision distortions.
Oreo Cookies
A few weeks ago I ran out of the organic fig bars from Whole Foods that I usually eat 1 of with my lunch. Looking for a locally available substitute, I considered Oreo cookies and looked at the ingredient list:
Sugar, enriched wheat flour, reduced iron, thiamine momonitrate, riboflavin, vegetable shortening, cocoa, corn syrup, corn flower, whey, cornstarch, baking soda, salt, soy lecithin, vanillin (artificial vanilla flavoring), and last & least of all, chocolate.
I thought that was funny.
No comments:
Post a Comment