Committing to a healthy lifestyle, being conscious about what foods I eat as well as the products I use on my skin and hair, will hopefully lessen my chances of becoming a victim of Big Pharma. We've got a disease management problem in this country. In his lecture, Andrew Weil said that healthcare costs so much because we only give lip service to prevention. Most of what we do is intervene in cases of established disease and the vast majority of that disease is a result of lifestyle. The kinds of interventions that medicine has come to favor depends on very expensive pharmaceuticals.So, how did we get into the habit of thinking that the only way to manage disease is to dispense drugs?
The answer is quite simple. Direct consumer advertising of drugs. Companies are capitalizing on a mindset which has taken deep root in both physicians and patients. If you told the average doctor to manage a case without the use of drugs, he or she would have not idea of what to do. If you told the average patient that a medical encounter was not going to result in a prescription, they would go to another practitioner until they got what they wanted - a pill to fix the problem.
The American healthcare system is bringing in a lot of money. Big insurers, medical devices companies and big pharma don't want change – they don't want to disrupt the flow of money going into their pockets. Those interests have total control over our legislators. No changes from our elected politicians - you won't see if from either Obama or Romney either so if you think you will, it won't happen.
Most people have no clear idea of what health is. It is not just absence of disease. It is a balance and flexibility within which will allow you to go through life and not get hurt by all the things that have the potential to harm you.