NYC Educator posted an entry about drugs and how their advertised side effects are overwhelming or worse than the original condition.
Well, it's watching advertisements like those that indicate the flaws in our health care system. We essentially train doctors to turn to chemotherapeutic short-cuts to better health (despite the fundamentalist contrary). It's not just medical professionals, it's the pharmaceutical industry and the ignorance of patients that also contribute to this issue.
In terms of the pharmaceutical industry, ultimately, it's a business. If there's a market for drug research and development, they'll always make more. And so long as a demand exists for the sort of treatment that is as simple as swallowing, inhaling, or applying a cream to your skin, they'll always look to deliver these medications in those fashions.
Patients are generally ignorant customers. That's why the FDA requires all pharmaceutical industries to disclose any and all adverse side-effects in their commercials. If you notice, the only time they don't tell you the side-effects are when the commercial never mentions the name of the drug itself. That's the condition for pharmaceutical advertising.
Health care professionals are trained in medical school to look for low impact therapies for patients that alleviate symptoms while minimizing adverse health risks. Once they graduate, they're vulnerable to the pharmaceutical influence where they'll be informed about new drug studies and they are very easily swayed to push the pill-popping practices that we're all too familiar with.
It's very similar to teaching. They preach the idealistic classroom conditions: differentiate instruction, individualize your lessons to the needs of your student population, and so on. Medical school is similar: Doctors are supposed to consider the social, financial, and environmental impact that therapies have on their patients. But what it all boils down to is that once you're out on your own and free from the ideals of medical school or graduate school, you make compromises and replace it with what's most convenient and still gets results (chalk and talk, and pill-popping). If it's impractical to implement, we'll settle for the system we have in place, even if it is obsolete or costly in the long run.
America is such an interventionist culture. We only give a damn when shit hits the fan rather than preventing problems in the first place. Just look at our economy. Just look at our environment. Just look at any other aspect of our society. Essentially, America is defined by the statement, "Who cares about prevention, intervention makes the most money for me now."
Here are some sites for those who aren't too keen on looking up medical information:
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