It’s because of greed. Drugs like Vioxx were generating billions of dollars in annual sales and were dangerous. But, the doctors that reviewed it got paid, the sales reps that sold it got paid, the ad firms that marketed it got paid, and the pharmacies that gave it to patients got their markup.
There is no incentive along the way to question a new drug.
Another one is Lipitor. There are many reports in patients of rhabodmyolysis yet most doctors never bother to liver enzyme checks in patients reporting leg pain.
I think in the future you will see most statins removed from the market. Yes, some will reduce you total cholesterol level. But there is no correlation in lower cholesterol and reduced morbidity or mortality according to AZ own studies. JMHO.
Absolutely agree - greed drives these drugs to market with the FDA’s blessing and sometimes underwhelming warnings later on.
Case in point - SSRIs/SNRIs. Negative drug trials are quashed and drug reps are instructed not to inform doctors of such, but rather to gloss over and promote the positive. Common business practice, sure, but we’re talking about human lives (and lots of them - hence the greed factor). As a result, drs are often ill-informed when it comes to (sometimes deadly) adverse side effects of antidepressant use, and almost all are completely ignorant of the probability that antidepressants cause painful withdrawal, sometimes very severe and prolonged.
And yet an estimated ten percent of the US population is currently taking antidepressants for not only depression, but for anxiety, bipolar disorder (even though ADs can actually CAUSE mania in BP patients and CREATE mania in patients with no history of BP), incontinence, autonomic disorders, fibromyalgia, nerve pain, insomnia, severe PMS, and to stop smoking - to name but a few off-label uses.
It is THE number one prescribed class of drugs in the US today. And recent studies say that ADs are prescribed to patients with no history of depression anywhere from 42% of the time (one study) to a truly alarming 75% of the time (another study).
This despite the fact that there’s no documented information available concerning long term use of SSRIs and SNRIs - we simply have no idea what long term effects these drugs, only developed within the last couple decades, might have on an unsuspecting populace.
Meanwhile, Cymbalta (SNRI only several years old) print ads state the following - “How does Cymbalta work? The exact way Cymbalta works is NOT KNOWN. Cymbalta is THOUGHT to affect seratonin, which is THOUGHT to affect moods.”
Are you kidding me? With that dubious endorsement by Eli Lilly itself, let’s all take drugs that alter brain chemistry!
“There is no incentive along the way to question a new drug.”
Apparently you’ve never read about what it takes to get a drug to market. Seriously, this isn’t a flame. You should do some research into the time, cost, and how restrictive the FDA is with approving new drugs.
There is only ONE industry that is more heavily regulated than pharma: Nuclear power.
I presume you are a conservative, so you understand the effects on regulation on any business. Operating and administrative costs increase and a huge amount of your resources are used in dealing with the regulation.
Yes, the pharma/research company makes money (as do shareholders), but much of that goes back into R&D. Pharma reinvests more profits back into R&D than most businesses.
Are there adverse events? Absolutely. Sometimes the prevalence of the AEs isn’t known until it’s in the much larger general population. Sometimes the AEs can be managed and/or monitored.
“Yes, the pharma/research company makes money (as do shareholders), but much of that goes back into R&D. Pharma reinvests more profits back into R&D than most businesses.”
Drug companies spend more on marketing and advertising than on R&D.
Yes, we hear about how costly it is to get pharmaceuticals tested and brought to market but it’s hard to take that seriously when they spend even more than that on marketing and advertising.
Interesting....just had a house guest who had to have heart surgery for 5 blockages....and is on Lipitor....HE said "it should be in the water"....His total cholesterol is 130 (his other readings are good too, I guess)....BUT, I said to my husband later...SO WHAT...I doubt it matters much since it's an artificial lowering and not addressing whatever the real problem is...(inflammation?)....I follow this because I have the NON-buyoant type of LDL, and although my cholesterol is normal am waiting to hear a doc say I need Lipitor, or some such thing for prevention....but....I'm just not buying it...CRP seems more important and I don't know if Lipitor helps that. Sorry I rambled....suffice to say....it seems drugs are PUSHED a lot.