Paying Off The Doctors

[achillea]

Dollars for Docs

Just put in the doctors name and state and see how much they have received from the Medical Industrial Complex

 

[achillea]

quoted from http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2009/01/15/drug-companies-doctorsa-story-of-corruption/

In recent years, drug companies have perfected a new and highly effective method to expand their markets. Instead of promoting drugs to treat diseases, they have begun to promote diseases to fit their drugs. The strategy is to convince as many people as possible (along with their doctors, of course) that they have medical conditions that require long-term drug treatment. Sometimes called “disease-mongering,” this is a focus of two new books: Melody Petersen’s Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs and Christopher Lane’s Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness.

To promote new or exaggerated conditions, companies give them serious-sounding names along with abbreviations. Thus, heartburn is now “gastro-esophageal reflux disease” or GERD; impotence is “erectile dysfunction” or ED; premenstrual tension is “premenstrual dysphoric disorder” or PMMD; and shyness is “social anxiety disorder” (no abbreviation yet). Note that these are ill-defined chronic conditions that affect essentially normal people, so the market is huge and easily expanded. For example, a senior marketing executive advised sales representatives on how to expand the use of Neurontin: “Neurontin for pain, Neurontin for monotherapy, Neurontin for bipolar, Neurontin for everything.”15 It seems that the strategy of the drug marketers—and it has been remarkably successful—is to convince Americans that there are only two kinds of people: those with medical conditions that require drug treatment and those who don’t know it yet. While the strategy originated in the industry, it could not be implemented without the complicity of the medical profession

 

[lollipop]

How sad. Confirms my choice to avoid the world of pharmaceuticals. I think @Tarmander's recent thread about seeing health as a whole and not isolated "disorders" is the true way out from this downward spiraling rabbit hole.

 

[Regina]

Dollars for Docs

Just put in the doctors name and state and see how much they have received from the Medical Industrial Complex

Cool site. Thx!
My doc didn't come in too too bad. $515 in a 3 year period. Looks like insulin and flu shots. (lol)

 

[yerrag]

Cool site. Thx!
My doc didn't come in too too bad. $515 in a 3 year period. Looks like insulin and flu shots. (lol)

I'm curious if you can correlate being the head of a department to the amount doctors are getting.

 

[burtlancast]

While the strategy originated in the industry, it could not be implemented without the complicity of the medical profession

Perhaps the most important point in your article.