Nowadays medicine is given by doctors and used by patients with almost no second thoughts. People take for granted that with the new technology and scientific standpoints the medicine that they get will solve the problem ninety percent of the time. Now don’t get me wrong, I am in no way saying they don’t do their jobs. Just that medicine producers produce medicine to only remove the symptoms of whatever the patient is struggling with. They feel as though side effects are not their fault because the manufacturers believe they have done their job.
As the creators of the products discard the side effects they go on to create medicines that treat the person for their specific need, but then causes them one hundred different side effects. This is clearly portrayed through the hundreds of advertisements shown throughout the day on the television. When a medicine is advertised they spend maybe one eighth of the time describing what the medicine treats, one eighth of how to obtain the medicine and then six eights to describe the multiple and in some cases, fatal side effects. I sometimes laugh to myself wondering what these companies must be thinking making a medicine to allow someone to sleep, but then as a side effect may cause them to die or gain some sort of terrible, irreversible condition.
In general I believe that modern medicine in most cases do not treat the patient in their best interest. If modern medicine were made in the consumers best interest there would be little to one side effect, and definitely nothing fatal. The definition of medicine is a compound or preparation used for the treatment or prevention of disease, esp. a drug or drugs taken by mouth, not a compound or preparation used for the treatment that also causes more health problems after being taken.
While many pharmaceutical companies do seem to be cold, self-interested entities, one must keep in mind that even with a massive amount of time and money at their disposal, it is very difficult to control the effect of a compound in the body and to develop a new compound that can replicate its effects with fewer side effects. Many times the side effects are intrinsically linked to the region treated.
ReplyDeleteExcellent point, Akash. I think it's a fairly recent phenomenon that drug companies have been allowed to advertise to the general public, and this makes patients much more in control of what they choose to put in their bodies. In a lot of cases, the side effects of medication are quite problematic.
ReplyDeleteI agree that sometimes medications do some more harmful than they are helpful when treating certain health issues. The medicine commercials that always confused me the most were for antidepressants which may cause you to be more depressed. How can it be helpful if it's trying to cure something included in its side effects? However, it is true that it is difficult to predict how chemicals will react in the brain of an individual since it could react differently for every person. No number of tests could help a drug become perfect.
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