“It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary is dependent upon him not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair
How wise are these words?
Today we live in a society where the conventional norms for medicine are absolutely riddled with conflicts of interest that violate this basic law of human nature.
Let's Consider a recent study in PLOS One that found that doctors that received the most lavish gifts from pharmaceutical companies prescribed the most expensive medications. Practitioners that received gifts from Big Pharma wrote more than twice the number of prescriptions than those that didn’t. Should we put the blame on Dr's? After all it;'s very well documented that we humans; especially ones with a capitalist bent are driven by incentives. take also into account that we are overworked and you can easily see how a Dr is going to prescribe the medicine that a rep brought by in a shiny brochure. The Dr. doesn't have as much time as is needed to get well-rounded info. Dr's are just as much a victim of the system as the patients.
It’s not just doctors that are influenced—researchers and their institutions are too. Several studies have found that the financial interests of researchers are associated with outcomes favorable to the sponsor in medical studies, and research institutions can be influenced by industry sponsorships such as grants, endowed chairs, and other gifts.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. As I mentioned above, it’s just our human nature.
These conflicts of interest stand in the way of a more just, humane, and effective healthcare system. An obvious way to prevent them would be to have laws prohibiting companies from giving gifts to doctors.
The challenge there is that Big Pharma spends almost $250 million a year lobbying Congress to get their way. After all, Why shouldn't they? They want to continue to grow.
To put this in perspective, the gun rights lobby spends just $10 million a year—25 times less than pharmaceutical companies. Which is a whole other subject for another blog site and day. We're going to stay focused on optimizing health here at Sweat Nation. Quick Tip. For great health, try not to get shot!!!
What can you or I do as individual clinicians in the face of this kind of influence?
Embrace a new paradigm that focuses on preventing and reversing disease rather than just suppressing symptoms with drugs.
That’s the revolutionary act we're supporting here at Sweat Nation.
That’s how we step outside of this understandably corrupt, corporate machine that doesn’t have our best interests at heart.
We may not be able to turn the tide on our own, but together we can make a huge impact. We can make decisions that make each of us less of a strain on the system, and if we can do that one by one, the way we interact with that tide evolves.
Here's to your Holistic health
Track Of The Day - The People - Common
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