Big Bucks, Big Pharma; Marketing
Diseases and Pushing Drugs is a documentary video about the activities of big
pharmaceutical companies who operate internationally and how those activities
impact the global health sector- from doctors to patients, from government to
researchers and medical students.
From the documentary, some of the
activities of Big Pharma (the name given to the entire global pharmaceutical
corporation) that we discover include: branding and marketing drugs in the way
that cosmetics would be branded thereby neglecting the health factor;
rebranding old and neglected drugs to make them more appealing to patients and
also more expensive; disregarding the side effects of drugs; advertising new
diseases to enhance purchase of old drugs, etcetera.
What we see is a near-conspiracy of
owners and investors of big pharmaceutical companies to constantly convince
their publics that they are ill and to make sure that they remain so in order
to sell their products and make profit. At no stage in this process, is the
health of the patient considered. In fact, we are given the impression that a
healthy patient is a sign of depreciation of profit, therefore these
organisations make sure that patients remain unhealthy. They achieve this, among
other ways, by convincing their targets through advertisement that certain
normal conditions could be ailments. An example of this is seen in the
advertisement of “Generalised Anxiety Disorder” in the video. By telling
targets to “ask your doctor” about the drugs that are being pushed, the
documentary suggests that doctors are influenced and a connection is created
between them and the drugs. Consequently, they prescribe more due to the subtle
demands from their patients whose influence come from the advertisements. Medical
students are consciously ushered into this system even before they begin their
practice by way of being given free branded apparatus by Big Pharma as they
graduate.
Big Pharma’s investors include
wealthy individuals, government institutions and agencies, stakeholders of
medical associations, medical researchers and food and drugs organisations. This
suggests that the institutions in charge of the health of the public, and who
should serve as watchdogs to keep organisations such as Big Pharma and their
activities in check are all compromised. Apparently, when the checks of these
institutions halt any activity of Big Pharma, their own pay checks will be
affected. Therefore, this supposedly rogue process easily by-passes authority
into the global health system.
In a global era where, actions at a
distance affects others irrespective, it implies that Big Pharma’s activities
affect locals in Africa where most people are oblivious of its existence to the
extent of penetrating remote villages. Take for instance the issue of a young
African woman in her early 20s and just out of college who develops stomach
ulcer. Her doctor prescribes Nexium (or the purple pill) which is actually
Prilosec that has been repackaged. Both doctor and patient are oblivious of
that fact as well as the fact that the prescription was part of the first batch
of experimental Nexium pills sent to Africa while Big Pharma and their
researches waited to see what reports arose. Beside, Nexium unlike Prilosec has
a greater risk of heart attack.
The case of Big Pharma is a
globalization of investment, trade, health care and disease. It is also a
typical case of the evils of modernization. Modernization has shifted the mode
of health care from herbs and concoctions to the production and purchase of
pills whose production include chemicals that are harsh to the human body.
Televising is also an element of modernization which allows for the broadcast
of these pills and sensitization of the public. This process which has been in
existence for the long term and doesn’t seem to be exiting anytime, has become
“how it’s done”. However, little do people appreciate that “how it’s done” is
causing loss of lives to the majority while it fills the pockets of a very
small minority.
“Ultimately, ‘Big Bucks, Big Pharma’
challenges us to ask important questions about the consequences of relying on a
for-profit industry for our health and well-being”. For Africa where the
validity of everything Western is seldom questioned, the question would be
whether it is good enough practice to resort to foreign solution to a problem
as sensitive as health especially when we still have ample access to natural
resolutions.
‘Big Bucks, Big Pharma’ does not
directly tackle the issue of globalisation and health but these are intricate
in the issues addressed and questions raised throughout the documentary.
SOURCES
·
Big Bugs, Big Pharma; Marketing Disease and
Pushing Drugs
·
Deadly Medicines and Organized crime: How big
Pharma has corrupted healthcare (A Summary), Peter Gotzsche
