Big Pharma; always inventing and "discovering" helpful drugs, happy energetic people running around, because they're using their drugs (turn on CNN for a day and watch their ads, you'll see what I mean). But beneath the cloak, hides an insidious industry with trumendous control. Control over who and what? That's what we will discover in this series of articles I'll be writing. My aim is to bring awareness on how big pharma operate, and to hopefully bring you a better understanding. It's not enough to just turn on the TV and see people demonstrating or complaining about the pharmaceutical industry, it's important to understand why.
I'm splitting the topic into several posts, to avoid long readings and because it takes time to write on such a hot matter. As an introduction, I would like to start with three personal anecdotes.
Story 1: The First Doctor
I did my Masters studies in Immunology, it's a branch of science that deals with antibodies, infections, bacteria, virii (not viruses). My studies were focused on autoantibodies in rhumatoid arthritis, and my supervising boss was a rhumatologist himself. In fact, the whole department's research team was supervised by rheumatologists. At Christmas time, my boss received a huge gift basket, including fancy chocolates, fruits and a few bottles of expensive wine, courtesy of Pfizer. At the time, I didn't think much of it, the department was impressed by the gift, and everyone was cheering for my boss. It's the holidays after all. We also had some side research projects with Bayer (if Bayer sent that gift, I wouldn't have thought too much of it.)
It got me thinking: we never heard my boss talk about Pfizer, so why did Pfizer send him such a gift?
You may also ask: why is Bayer even doing research in a university, don't they have their own facilities?
Story 2: The Second Doctor
Fast forward some years later. I proudly finished my PhD in Immunology and I was on the verge of completing my post-doc studies (in biochemistry/pharmacology this time) when I got hit by anxiety attacks. I'll spare you the details of my ordeal, so I had to halt everything and take a big break. My body and mind were overwhelmed and I couldn't take the pressures anymore. Unfortunately, anxiety led to depression, and I went to consult my good old family doctor. We called him Dr. Tylenol, cause whatever your ailment, he often prescribed Tylenol. So he wanted to prescribe me a drug as a treatment. Now, I'm a scientist, I come from an academic place, I had friends who struggled with anxiety and depression during their studies, and a few were indeed on medication. That particular medication he wanted to prescribe, some of my friends tried it and they totally didn't like its side effects. So I asked him, can you prescribe something else? NO he said, it's the best drug out there, very efficient blah blah blah. He was defending it so much, he categorically REFUSED to prescribe anything else! So I let him prescribe it and I tossed into the garbage when I left his office.
It got me thinking: why was he so defensive about that drug?
Story 3: The Third Doctor
My father's friend is a successful internist, he practices in the USA. We visited him a few times, he visited us too. He was a big advocate of Pfizer. Everytime we met, Pfizer was the main subject of his talk. He even often offered me to come see him when I finish my studies and that he would help me find a job at Pfizer. I found that thoughtful. He talked about Pfizer as if it was the only big pharma in existence. Such a high praise and admiration for their drugs. He later became a consultant for them... no surprise there.
It got me thinking: why was he so enthralled by that company?
I hope you're not bored by my stories so far, but you can already spot a pattern here, big pharma's powerful tentacular grip on many aspects of research and medicine. Perhaps similar to a japanese hentai tentacle rape (you can google that to see what it looks like).
"Rest, Neo, the answers are coming."
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