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Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
Do they no everything? No--but they aren't some sinister cabal out to sell drugs and harm people with experimental therapies. They're doctors--their secret agenda is to treat illness.
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I don't doubt that doctors are trying to help people. I'm doubting whether they know everything that will happen long term with some of the drugs they are prescribing. Money is not an irrelevant factor when looking at how studies are done, which studies are promoted, which drugs are marketed to the doctors to use, etc.
If there's any agenda to be found its with Big Pharmaceutical companies. I'm not sure everyone realizes how many billions are at stake with some of these drugs given the prevalence of prescribing today. That's big money. No secret agenda, a quite open one. They want to sell drugs. In order to do that bad side-effects may be talked down. It isn't really that long ago in the grand scheme of things that Tobacco companies were still producing "studies" and research that showed tobacco wasn't as bad as some though. That's an excellent case study to use to see how big money can corrupt public safety.
Perhaps some attention should be given to the idea of making the drug business a public one, gov't run to reduce the conflict between proft and public safety.
Like I said, read some books on these drugs and on mental illness.
If you look at the history of psychiatry and mental illness the 20th century unfortunately looks a lot more like the 19th century than you'd think. A lot of reports of miracle cures, great success rates. Then a procedure or drug becomes widely used and the effectiveness comes into question and side-effects are found out to be more debilitating than first thought.
Doctors raved about anti-psychotics early on. Then they ackowledged the side-effects were horrible. Now we've got the wondrous atypical anti-psychotics. These have replaced some horrible side-effects with other horrible side-effects.
This is still going on today. New studies can reveal side effects that weren't previously known. Drug companies have been sued for deaths and side effects. Drug interactions cannot be fully tested with 100% certainty.
It may be less of a concern for certain types of medication than others. As I've said, I'd be particularly wary about anti-psychotics.