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Triumph of Reason: Pharmacy
by Groff Schroeder
| Since the dawn of humanity, people have sought treatments for disease and ways to improve their health. The earliest medical caregivers were probably little more than tribal elders who used their knowledge and experience with indigenous plants to help their communities. Today's medical caregivers must understand and apply a vast array of scientific, psychological, legal and medical knowledge in a highly-regulated environment. Huge pharmaceutical corporations provide a stunning variety of medications, every one scientifically validated safe and effective - at least until recently. |
Before 1820, medicine in the United States was a haphazard environment. Medical caregivers often had little formal training and few of the instruments and drugs that practitioners of medicine today find essential. Medicine was basically a folk practice, characterized by chaotic educational processes such as apprenticeships. Doctors exhibited the same widespread ignorance of biology, pathology, pharmacology, and science as the general population. Before laws that governed doctors and prescriptions, unregulated drug manufacturers made immense fortunes selling (sometimes addictive) products with little or no proven effectiveness to uninformed customers. |
Humans' fear of death and desire for maximum health drove many consumers to knowingly purchase ineffective products, regardless of price. Pharmaceutical companies realized incredible profits and power with such products, benefiting from the lack of effectiveness testing and the lack of laws to prevent exploitation of desperate consumers. Abuses of the public trust and the public health in the past eventually led to laws, regulations and federal oversight to prevent such exploitation and fraud. |
Perhaps nothing is more representative of the practice of 20th century medicine in the United States than the professional certification of physicians and pharmacists. Treatments are now scientifically verified and medications are clinically tested for safety and effectiveness. It wasn't kindly drug manufacturers that accomplished these foundations of modern medical care. Instead, it was a horrific tragedy with unregulated medications (contaminated pertussis vaccine that caused the death of thirteen children in St Louis) that forced politicians to turn to science as the foundation of laws regulating the distribution and sale of medications. |
Recent lobbying, pressure from campaign donors, and the return of antiquated laws have threatened the resurgence of some detrimental conditions once relegated to history books, including the ability of corporations to reap huge profits from the sale of unsafe medications. |
Drug manufacturers often shower politicians with "donations" (once called bribes) to obtain favorable legislation. "Fast track" licensing and failure to disclose data from other studies have allowed the entry of pharmaceuticals such as Vioxx into the market. The Medicare program inexplicably prohibits the government from negotiating for lower prices from drug manufacturers. Despite almost 100 years of successful regulation of the American medical and pharmaceutical professions, it now seems that the United States has returned to the 19th century, when fantastic profits were more important than protecting the public from unfair pricing and unsafe medications. |
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