Today's news really upset me for two reasons. The first is the acceptance of senility being considered normal aging by too many-I think we are making progress with this issue. The second is more difficult because money is the issue. As more and more drugs are being developed drug companies are looking for pathologies to be treated with them. Look at all the inane commercials telling you to ask your doc if this med's for you. I'm sure some gender inappropriate drugs were asked for. Ditropan is now linked to dementia according to the article. Must we treat everything will a pill without first exploring other means of treatment. OK-I'll get off my soapbox for a while
I can assure you that doctors don't like the advertising either. We get patients asking us for the latest drugs all the time, regardless of whether or not they are appropriate. Often, we can treat the problem easily with an older drug that is also much less expensive. But, the patients get very upset if we don't give them what they want.
bluedaze, Pharmaceutical Company's don't care! It's about the money! Period! They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars weekly to advertise those drugs, they want the consumer to walkin the Doctors office and request them. Just think, if they spend all those monies how much they are making from the sale of them. The more they get the name of a drug out there the more it's requested = more sales= more money in their pocket! It's awful how they work. Basically it's just like brand recongnition. Example, Q-tips are cotton swab's but consumers request Q-tips (not that they want to buy the leading brand, but they know the cotton swab as Q-tip) Coke is really a soda, yet we order a Coke. The majority of consumers don't say I want a soda. When something is advertised and in your face several times a day (won't even go into the fact that sometimes we see the same ad several times an hour) we automatically use the name versus what the product actually is. Again they want the consumer to walk in and ask for the name of their drug versus asking the medical professional for a relief/cure to what ails them.
A while ago I was watching a medical program and they started talking about depression and gave a satistic on how many people were takeing "Happy Pills" (my name to generalize all depression medicine) they also gave a satistic of how many people are helped by the " Happy Pill " - 70% of the people on "Happy Pills" are still depressed! Why then would you take a chemical that's not doing a darn thing for you? hmmmmm, maybe because it's been pounded in your head thru ad's that a little pill is gonna take all those bad feelings away. Ok, so I jumped up with you on that soap box, Sorry! RK
RK-it's a large soapbox. When I was still doing home nursing visits I found my clients still using OTC brand name stuff like Phillips MOM and the like. I questioned them about their need for "Designer" laxatives. It was a familiar name and was comfortable for them. Repetition via TV ads must really bring in the big bucks. The one that bugs me is the two people in their stupid bath tubs. Never could figure out what that had to do with ED. Any by the way-why the change from being impotent to having ED?
I am not a conspiracy buff, sometimes I believe things just happen. However, sometimes there are price-fixing schemes, etc, and altho I cannot prove it, I believe the medical industry does not always hold the patients' interest first--individual docs do, of course, but not the big organizations. I do not believe that embryonic stem cells can help AD and, even so, it will be years before they help anyone for anything. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, have had much successful research helping with all kinds of conditions. Much of it is political all tied up w/abortion & religion--that's where the fight is, never mind the science--which, so far, favors adult stem cells but emryonic stem cells keep being pushed--one wonders why. How many people know that big corporations have PATENTS on embroynic stem cells in America. Can't get them in Europe, but we have them here. Of course, you can't get a patent on an adult stem cell, mine belong to me and your's belong to you, but where do the embryonic stem cells come from that others have a PATENT on. I have no religious attitude about it, but just a big 'eweeh' factor. Those of you in the medical field on this site, I'd be interested in your take.
Several years ago I was told by a surgeon that medicine is moving toward pills and away from surgery. Maybe, I don't know, and a pill is preferable to surgery if you can help things like cancer. My doc and I wrestle all the time about my taking pills. He says yes, I say no--but then, he does keep me going. My mom always came home from the doc w/pills & flushed them down the toilet. We had the healthiest toilets in town. And my own experience, because I am elderly, tells me that many old wives tales are still valid and safer then an advertised pill that often has a rapid quiet voice & minute printing at the end of the ad telling you all the possible negative side-effects, even death!
You know bluedaze there are a lot of commercials like that, LOL. Actually it's not funny. I think even more than the "what's" that have to do with the product/service etc. Is with pharmaceutical commercials the give you numerous side effects yet someone will still take the damm stuff even if its might give you liver cancer, are you kidding? Oh by the way, that product is for the relief of arthritis.
Marketing- One thing I learned years ago, is the more you see the name, hear the jinngle, etc the more apt that you will buy that product. Think back to the 70's, Mc D's commercials, it describe a Big Mac. Can you tell me what a Big Mac is? Hint- two all beef patties, ______________________ you fill in the blank. Most people over 35 can. It was shoved into our brains every other commercial.
My soap box stand continues.................... Thankfully you have a large soapbox bluedaze! ( You know everyone will be sending emails telling you to get her off, LOL)
Need to watch pouring pills down the toilet - it will wind up back in our water supply. They find high levels of drugs in ground water all the time. There are even towns that recycle their sewer water back into drinking water.
As for all the drug pushing on the boob-tube: they have to push their drugs here in the US so they can sell them dirt cheap in other countries. I once heard being able to do this was an agreement between the drug companies and our government. We all hear stories of seniors that go south to Mexico, Puerto Rico and others where the drugs are practically free. Someone has to subsidize them. Guess who???
I've heard that other countries, like Germany, have largely stopped researching new drugs letting the US do it & spend the money. Then everyone gets the benefit w/out all the cost and helps keep the cost of their health care down. Nice, huh.
I think companies like Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Merck KGaA would be quite surprised to hear that... these German companies are among the top twenty pharmaceutical companies worldwide.
Five of the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the world are "foreign": Sanofi-Aventis, based in Paris; Novartis and Hoffman-La Roche, headquarters in Basel; and GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, headquartered in the UK.
Every major pharmaceutical company, no matter where it is headquartered, has major research facilities in multiple countries around the world.
None of the major pharmaceutical companies could survive without extensive investment in R&D.
Regarding flushing pills down the toilet - DON'T DO IT!!!!! Not only does it get in the drinking water. It also affects any fish or other aquatic animals. Flushing birthcontrol pills will stop reproduction of fish, etc. This even can happen from a woman on birthcontrol urinating into the public sewer system (through her own toilet). Tranquilizers can tranquilize the fish making them easier prey for birds, etc., which then become tranquil. And on and on it goes. Everything we do has some effect on the environment, so we need to be aware all the time of what we are doing.
I had no idea......... frankly never thought about it. I watched some Hospice helpers flush lots of morphine down the toilet with the hour after a friend's mother died. At the time, I was only thinking about the waste. Poor fish! We live in the Houston area and Galveston Bay is lined with warnings about not eating the fish and oysters that come from there. The refineries have soooooo poluted the bay. It's criminal in my eyes. But I never thought about the effect medication flushed down the sewer would have. Doesn't all sewer waste go through a waste water treatment plant.
I will point out that my Mom flushed pills in the 30's & 40's, I don't do it today. At that time we didn't have all the drugs we have now, but you are right to post such warnings. Disposal has become difficult for so many things--not just drugs & there is so much more of it.
Yes, sewer waste does go through a treatment plant, but this does not removed the dissolved medications. To get rid of unused medications, you should take them to your local hospital, where they will be disposed of correctly.
Just got a reverse 911 yesterday advising of which pharmacies are accepting old meds to get rid of. Also giving a $5 gift card when you drop them off. Doesn't get any better than that. Only problem for me is that I don't have any old meds (guess that's good)
Thank you, marsh and bluedaze. I knew I wasn't supposed to flush them, but figured throwing them in the trash is just as bad ... they'll leak into the water system from the trash fill. Didn't know what to do.
"Correctly" depends on the type of med. There are all sorts of different laws regarding the ways in which different types of hazardous materials can be "properly" disposed. Be glad you don't have to worry about that!
Back on the subject of pharmaceutical companies investing in R&D ... each ONE of the top twenty pharmaceutical companies invests several billion dollars in research per year. (I looked into this kind of thing when developing new tools needed for drug development.) The last statistics I saw said that the average cost of bringing a new drug to market is a bit over $800 million. I saw something the other day that implied the cost has now gone over $1 Billion. This does take into account all the failed attempts, averaged into that number, but the bottom line: drug development is not for the faint-hearted or the under-financed.
I think I saw stats the other day which said 7% of drugs successfully make it through clinical trials. (This does not mean that they are a financial success, however. There are many ways in which a drug can fail.)
The success rate for drugs to treat dementias is far lower -- only 4 drugs approved from more than 100 that went into trials. I have a paper on why it has been so difficult to get FDA approval for new drugs for treating dementia, if anyone is interested. It's kind of hard-going, but interesting. For one thing, they've been trying to take short cuts on determining the optimum dosage, to get the drug to market more quickly, and that has NOT been working.