The pharmaceutical industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year trying to convince you through advertising that they care about you and that you can trust in the safety of their products. The fact that drug interactions/side-effects are one of the leading causes of illness and death each year is completely ignored. The fact is that you probably didn’t even know that drugs are a leading cause of death and illness in the U.S. each year. What the exact number of deaths is each year is not known for sure due to problems with reporting. However, the number is in the ten thousands range. (30,000 at the lowest and 160,000 towards the highest)

Isn’t it amazing that drugs could cause so many deaths each year without the majority of the population’s knowledge? How is it that all of us have heard about the plague of cancer, heart disease, and accidents? Why is it that we have associations (American Heart Association, etc) that focus on stopping the deaths from these killers but none to address the gross amount of deaths being caused by pharmaceuticals? The answer is that cancer, heart disease and accidents are not driven by an industry with the power and money to launch a continuous barrage of marketing to the population and doctors to convince them to ignore the 400 pound gorilla sitting at the table.

This brings me to my encounter with the two beauty pageant contestants and their district manager at Panera Bread. Their manager started their meeting by saying that since they were in public they would use their code-words to protect any sensitive information. I think that was probably a good idea. I would do the same. But then he began to go over every aspect of their market share in their territory. Not only did they know how many prescriptions were written by each group, but also by each individual doctor. They also knew the market share for their competitors and talked about trends both positive and negative. They then began to strategize on how they could increase their market share by gaining influence over target doctors and groups of doctors.

Now let’s be honest here. This is good business practice and is no different from what any other company would do in a competitive market. So, what is my beef? Let me answer this by sharing with you what happened next.

After going over a lot of information, the two reps’ manager gave them the bad news. They were not going to get their extra bonus. I could not tell for what period of time the bonus was for (quarter, year, etc), but I could tell one thing. Both reps were not happy. The manager then went into cheerleading mode to help motivate his reps to get their bonus next time. At the end of this cheerleading session he said something very revealing. He said, “At the end of the day, that is what this is all about: Making Money!” I have also heard a manager for a different pharmaceutical company say that he wakes up every day thinking about his market share.

The problem with this is that these are the people who supply your doctors with almost ALL of their information. If you think that your doctors do person research to verify what these drug reps tell them, think again. They take the tidbits of information from these reps and file them away in their brains to be tapped for later use. Now ask yourself this very simple question and be honest to yourself when thinking about the answer. Do you really think that any pharmaceutical rep worried about making a bonus and keeping market share would tell a doctor anything negative about their drug? Of course, NO! Not in a million years because it is not about what is good for the patient’s health; it is all about making money. Anything that gets in the way of making money will be attacked with vigor. Thus, any negative information that comes out regarding a drug is followed by a marketing barrage from these reps meant to minimize any financial impact upon their bonuses and income. In other words, they will and do tell doctors anything to keep them writing for their drug.

When a drug is shown to be ineffective or dangerous, they convince doctors not to jump to conclusions until a definitive study comes forth. Such a study could take many years to complete if it is ever performed. Doctors are happy to oblige because if they stopped prescribing with every negative study they would have NOTHING to prescribe. What would they do during a patient visit? The scenario would look something like this: “I would prescribe this but it may cause you to have a heart attack, and this one increases your chance of getting the flu, and the other one causes flatulence with greasy discharge! (Yuk!) That is an actual side-effect, I did not make that up.

Thus, the pharmaceutical industry knows that all they have to do is create doubt in a doctor’s mind and they will not abandon the prescription of that drug until a definitive study brings unquestionable proof that the drug kills.

The pharmaceutical industry is made up of three types of people. The first are the “higher ups” who care about one thing: Making money. The second are the researchers and developers of drugs. They care about coming up with molecules that can help people. The third are the marketers of the drug. They care only about making money. Unfortunately, the researchers have zero influence on the medical community. So, the only group that actually cares makes no difference.

It is interesting, though, that this is the only group you see in T.V. commercials. They know that your personal encounters form your judgment of the whole. So, if that researcher who is developing a cancer drug because her mother died of the disease tells you how she cares with tears in their eyes, you will be touched and will feel good about the pharmaceutical company as a whole. This is very powerful marketing and it works!

The Bottom Line:

Do not be fooled into believing that the pharmaceutical industry cares about your health. They have proven over and over again that they will gamble with your life in order to make money. And, do not be fooled into thinking that your doctor has any understanding of just how dangerous a drug may be. When was the last time your doctor prescribed you a drug and then sat down with you to go over all of the side-effects that you could likely experience? They will tell you that the drug is very well tolerated and to let them know if you experience anything you think could be a side-effect. How do you do that when the side-effect is a heart attack or stroke? Just some food for thought.