Not sure if this will surprise you or not. I was actually rather taken aback.
Almost HALF of Americans are on some sort of prescription drug.
Right now. This very minute!
This includes children by the way, it’s not just adults.
Americans are truly a drugged up nation yet thorough examination of the situation reveals that most prescription drugs only work for 30% of the people for which they are originally intended!
The most popular drug prescribed by doctors is by far antidepressants although these drugs work no better than a placebo. Even “talk therapy” was found to work 20% more effectively than antidepressants in clinical trials.
Why are half of doctors (by their own admission) routinely prescribing drugs they know won’t work and despite the fact that 85% of new drugs hitting the market have been found through research to provide little to no benefit to their patients?
Psychiatrists, for example, earn twice as much when they prescribe drugs instead of therapy for their patients.
It’s easy to point the finger at Big Pharma and corporate greed in general as the cause of America’s drug woes. The fact is that many doctors are complicit and just as guilty. If doctors refused to go along with the drug companies’ shenanigans, the game would be over tomorrow.
Big Pharma has your doc’s back though. $7 Billion was paid out by the pharmaceutical industry between 2007 and 2010 for lawsuits where doctors were actually paid to prescribe drugs for unapproved uses.
Insist on the 10 Year Rule
The best way to protect yourself from falling victim to unnecessary prescription use is to question when a doctor writes you a script rather than dutifully filling it without a second thought which is what most people do.
Do you really need this drug? Would wiser lifestyle choices result in a better outcome long term? Would herbs or natural therapies produce the same improvements without any risk of toxic side effects?
If you do feel that you need the drug for whatever reason, be sure to research it yourself and determine whether it is really as effective as marketed. Â A good rule of thumb is to insist that your doctor only prescribe you a drug that has been on the market for at least 10 years. Â This is the rule my father used when prescribing for his patients and he never felt like he was being overcautious in his approach.
By using the 10 year rule, he knew it was highly unlikely his patients would turn out to be guinea pigs for the drug companies and that the drugs his patients did take under his guidance would most likely work as he anticipated given that they had been on the market for awhile.
What is your doctor’s drug prescribing philosophy? Â It might be worth your while to ask a few questions and find out.
You just might be surprised.
Hint: Â If they don’t have one, run!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Actually there are many at fault with this system. Doctors, Big Pharma, insurance companies, and PATIENTS. We’ve lost all sense of personal responsibility and expect the “experts” to solve every little ailment. My husband is a pharmacist (but we don’t take that stuff…) and he’ll come home and tell us about some stomach bug going around. I say, “People go to the doctor for that?? It’ll be gone tomorrow!!” Insurance companies control what people can and cannot take (like they should take most of it at all) as well as what doctors they can and cannot see, and doctors are pressured by their patients (thanks to tv commercials and friends with the same ailments) and drug companies to prescribe the latest and greatest. As for us, I’ll stick to our milk from our own Jersey cows (and all the goodies that go with it) and other real foods.
Wow…Sarah I assume you have never worked in a medical office?…it doesn’t look like it anyway. Well I do and FYI, you are very naive to how things work when it comes to prescription medications. There is something called step therapy for almost EVERY prescription medication…It goes from generic (tier 1) up to numerous brand names of similar medications (tier 3) The doctor has to start at the generic (tier1) due to YOUR INSURANCE. For example, acid reflux medication: The doctor usually will begin with omeprazole or pantoprozole…they work, but the better medications are nexium & dexilant…however most insuarances refuse to pay for these unless the cheaper meds are tried and failed first. BLAME YOUR INSURANCE COMPANIES!! I am a nurse and fight with insurance companies on a daily basis for patients to get the better medication.
yawn…
I have to go with Rose here, and add a little bit to it. For one, Dexilant is a great acid reflux medicine – yes, you can heal your gut with diet, but for those of us just starting out on this path, it’s a great medication that saves me from pain, and yes, I had to “step up” to get it approved by insurance.
Now – while I agree that a lot of anti-depressants are meaningless, there are much bigger chemical imbalances to deal with like bipolar and schizophrenia – and the right med at the right dosage can literally be a lifesaver. I am bipolar, and I take really good care to make sure I’m on a drug that’s well researched and is effective for me. I don’t believe in adding meds to treat side effect of meds – that’s a slippery slope.
Because I have this medication, I am stable enough to be more proactive in my personal care. I’m stable enough to read the research on diet, and make constant and deliberate choices on how to heal in hopes I can ditch the prescription one day – but I think it’s REALLY important to recognize that sometimes, prescriptions are necessary to get us out of crisis enough to make improvements on our own.
I agree with Rose and I think it is the insurance companies. I hate medicines. I agree with the premise of too much pharma but I think people go to the doctor looking for a quick fix and henceforth the prescriptions. They don’t want to have to change a thing, they just want a pill to fix whatever is the problem. I used to be that way as well, now I don’t even like to think about taking Advil. When I talk about how I eat and how it has helped, people roll their eyes at me. They don’t want to take the time to make good changes.
Although I agree with your statement about overmedicating. I do not agree with your comment about pharma companies. There is a place for them and their innovative medications that they make. It is the doctors choice of what medication to prescribe, they choose it. They are not paid and forced to prescribe certain medications. The problem is insurance companies and their reimbursement. 10-year-old medications are not the answer. There are drastic improvements with newer medications, it just depends on which one you choose.
Actually, I’m not surprised at all. Theres been many reports coming out in the last few years showing that many drug studies in supposedly credible medical journals are potentially false or bias due to Big Pharma funding. So its not surprising that the drugs being prescribed don’t work as they should.
I love this post! I have had many doctors tell me, “Well…let’s try this and see what happens.” That’s spooky.
I really like doctors who are thoughtful and recommend lifestyle changes before they prescribe anything. I recently was diagnosed with Fibro and my rheumatologist told me that it was most important for me to live healthy and get better sleep. He said he didn’t want to prescribe anything and that lifestyle changes are the best way to go. I love doctors like him! 🙂
That doctor is one in a million! Wonderful you found him….
Last year there was a website, started by four doctors, which statistically tracked the effectiveness of commonly prescribed drugs and medical procedures. I was astonished to learn that the vast majority of the drugs and treatments failed over ninety percent of the time.
But they rarely failed to generate huge profits for the drug companies and the medical industry.
Unfortunately, I lost the link to that site, but it is a real eye opener.
Don’t get me started! They’ve changed our asthma medications – even Ventoline. It used to go down like butter – now it rips your throat and you feel like you need more, and then you can get worse! Plus the new generation ones (like the purple disk) have left me with no deep breathing – I can’t YAWN anymore.
I told this to a hospital lung capacity tester, and he said the pharmaceutical companies did in fact change them and now it take two to three times the amount of drugs to pull people through severe attacks. One time I couldn’t walk properly for a month after an emergency room visit – and this was only from inhaled medications!
Changing my diet thanks to the WAPF guidelines was a lifesaver – my asthma is under control.
The 10 year rule is so true – I live in France and several years ago the French government put out a dictate to doctors to avoid (if possible) newer versions of standard drugs.
Helen, my boyfriend has asthma and I am curious to some of the simple diet changes and etc that have made the most impact for you in healing, and keeping your asthma under control? I know that dark chocolate and coffee help him, but aren’t the most healthy choices…
A friend of ours gave us a book a few years ago called “How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor” bt Dr. Robert Mendelsohn. He talks about how drugs are over prescribed and how more often than not, your child will recover on his/her own. It’s a FANTASTIC book that has some great guidelines on when medical attention is necessary. Even if you don’t have kids, is a good book to flip through.
I have totally lost faith in them. I avoid doctors and drugs as much as I can. and I have never been as healthy, not since I was a small child. I make full use of real food and natural methods to make the natural functions of my body, including the immune system, as healthy and functional as I can.
I am not advising anyone else to do what I do, and there are some risks. But it works for me.
I could have written this comment, Stanley…and think this is a very timely post, Sarah. I’m watching a friend’s health diminish daily because of conventional medicine, while she gives no serious thought to nutrition. “Add another drug? Well, if you think so….” It’s time to stop checking our brains at the door when we seek medical advice.
Well said, Stanley! I grew up in Eastern Europe and you only went to the doctor if you were really sick (I remember going once or twice in my first 14 years of life!). We used herbs, honey and other home remedies frequently and with great success. Since having my 2 kids I have taken a course on homeopathy and have learned even more about herbs and other ‘alternative’ treatments. If I listened to doctors I would have probably been on a cholesterol-lowering drug for 10 years or so (I’m 35 and my cholesterol has hovered around 230 – that was a few years ago when I had it tested). No, thanks!! (pass the butter, please!)
I could not agree more! Last week I had some (fairly invasive) dental work done, and the endodontist prescribed a course of antibiotics. Which of course made my guts a mess. I finally called my dentist and he said that if I just used a natural toothpaste (he said to use Dr. Nate’s Naturals) without fluoride or SLS, and with xylitol to keep the bacteria down, I wouldn’t need the antibiotics. I don’t think the endodontist even gave it 2 seconds thought – he just wrote the prescription without even considering an alternative.