Care to share your thoughts on science/drug companies being truthful about finding cures, or just in profit?

Question

Who is watching and checking their research results? Who is really in control of the outcome of trials. How much does the public get informed about, except when drugs go wrong and cause problems--even after the FDA approves them?

Answer 1

The cold hard truth about pharmaceutical companies is that they are a for profit industry--BIG profits. Unfortunately, they typically research and develop drugs that have a higher profit margin. This can be somewhat of a dangerous thing if you think about it...it's more profitable to treat a disease than cure it all together.
I'm not saying there aren't people looking for cures, but if you look at it from a business standpoint, the $$ is in the treatments.
Drug companies don't like competition either, and they pay big money to lobbyists and PACs to ensure that their best interests are met. For example, do you think ephedra was taken off the market because it was so dangerous....or was it because the major drug companies weren't making money from it, being an herbal supplement. Less than 100 deaths total have been attributed to ephedra use, yet at least 1,000 people die per year from OxyContin alone...most likely more. I actually know a teenage boy who died from ODing on OxyContin, I don't know anyone who died from ephedra. Makes you wonder who the FDA and government are really working for, eh?

Answer 2

I think pharmaceutical companies would not mind creating a drug to treat "stupid." I really do someday expect to see what would normally look like a Mad t.v. commercial advertising the side effects, including death, from popping a daily pill for "stupid."

Drugs will always go wrong and cause problems because there is no possible way to know how they will react with each patient's body chemistry. What might be perfectly fine in one person, might actually help them as it's ruining their kidneys, might be downright dangerous to someone else with a stronger immune system.

The thing is, patients can, if they want to take the initiative, find out almost anything about the drugs. They don't have to rely upon doctors who aren't going to tell them everything. They can read the information the pharmacist includes, they can research what has been written about it. They can inform themselves a bit more if the doctor or pharmaceutical companies won't. They can take other proactive measures to care for their health too. If so many people didn't have problems they shouldn't, such as obesity, then drug companies couldn't count on making money as much and they might become more ethical about their research process and what types of drugs they attempt to and/or succeed in putting out.

The pharm. companies give medicines to doctors to try out on certain populations (elderly, poor, etc.) and give them incentives to push that drug for them. The "study" the doctor can claim to be a part of is another part of the proof that the pharm. companies are mostly in it for money and don't care who they hurt as long as they get the money. The FDA can approve anything they want to, unfortunately, and then later change their minds. I do not know who is "really in control of the outcome of trials" but I do think it is not someone who has a heart so much as a cash box inside their thoracic cavity.

Sorry if this was a bit more anecdotal than researched. It's my opinion until more life experience changes it, I guess.

Answer 3

The purpose of any company that uses the invested money of stockholders is to earn more money than they expend (profits). To do otherwise would be dishonest. Drug companies expend large amounts of money on pure and applied research to find cures or aleviate conditions for the ills of man (and women too!). The profits for successful drugs must pay for all the failures. Even though the FDA requires stringent tests of all new drugs, they are first tested on animals then on selected members of the human population exhibiting the condition under study. Only after the drug is released (by perscription) to the general population is it discovered that while helping some conditions it aggravates other illnesses. Often many individuals have allergies to certain substances (some people can not drink public water because of trace amounts of copper in it!) and have bad reactions (even to pennicilin). If a drug company is successful in inventing a new helpful drug, they have exclusive use to sell it for only a short time (following filing for the patent) before generic drug companies can copy and sell it without all the expense of advanced research. Lawyers and an angry press are always waiting in the wings to bankrupt any drug company if things go wrong. And it is not always crlear if the drug is at fault because many people do not take the drug strictly as prescribed or report reactions promptly and clearly. Prescription drugs can also interact with non-prescription drugs, food supplements and even some foods. Who said that the world of medicine was easy?

I use as few prescribed drugs as possible but pain relievers and antibiotics have worked like a charm when required. Our drug companies (in the USA) will not even manufacture certain vacines because of the possibility of huge law suits; even though timely interuption of a pandemic could save millions of lives and manufacture here is highly regulated for purity.

Now that there are many resistant strains of germs on the loose is no time to tie a drug company's hands behind their backs. When you assess the gross profits of a drug company, take the time to look up its stock report and check how much (or little?) the stockholders are receiving for their investments (and risks) and how much money the company is spending on new research. Would you buy the stock?

Answer 4

It is a complicated mess.

Drug companies are motivated by profit.

Profit suffers if
- their company is seen in a bad light and people will not use their products - hence they will try to be seen to deal above board with everything. They need to follow the rulebook in getting drugs approved for human consumption in various countries
- their drug suddenly has unexpected side effects not previously seen (see sudden withdrawal of Vioxx (rofecoxib) with the increased heart disease or historically what happened with Thalidomide which is only now being revisited as an anti-nausea medication for people who are demonstrably non-pregnant).
- the time period for patent expires on a drug and allows competitors to manufacture the drug also. There are some drugs where it is in fact not financially viable for drug companies to manufacture and distribute. These drugs (usually older drugs or those with no patents and only small areas of clinical applicability) tend to get left by the wayside eg. naltrexone for treatment of drug addiction. - See Orphan Drugs
- their drugs are taken in a short course, rather than over many years on a daily basis

As you see, in an indirect way the drug companies are motivated to investigate/research/develop new drugs (or new spins on old drugs). They would rather develop palliation than cure from a profit point of view, but would benefit from kudos in developing a cure.

They like to fund research and clinical trials but tend to cut funding if the findings are not to their liking. People publishing trials are required to declare any interests they may have in the various drug companies involved.

Trials are exactly that, a test. Many drugs don't make it to the shelves because they fail a test at one level or another. The drug companies will try not to influence the outcome of a trial - they would be accused of bad research! However they CAN select what they will publish! They will often not publish results unfavourable to them and go back to the drawing board to try and iron out problems.

All the important information available to doctors is actually available to the public on the internet these days. The trouble is that most members of the public are not scrupulous about investigating what they put into their mouths. (See how many still eat at McDonalds!)

When doctors started reporting birth defects in droves following the Thalidomide tragedy, the drug sank from use in the 1960s and only re-emerged for use in the late 1990's with strict guidelines. The pharmaceutical firm who marketed thalidomide (Richardson-Merrell pharmaceutical company) has sunk into oblivion. Most other pharmaceutical firms know the consequences of inadequate research as we have seen in the latest scandal about COX2 inhibitors (eg Vioxx) and heart disease. The drug has been withdrawn.

Answer 5

the main motivation is obviously money..i say this because how many drugs are currently under development for malaria by pharm companies like pfizer? no a lot..why?
cause noone in north america gets malaria!! the people that get it cant afford to pay really anything for the drugs so theyd lose half a billion dollars developing something
thats not to say that the companies dont do helpful research and development, cause thats not true either...its just not a black and white issue..there are many shades of gray

Answer 6

Drug companies are a big business. Most of the meds just help the symptoms not for cure.

Answer 7

I wrote what a Harvard medical doctor says about the the big pharmaceutical company's on my page.

You might find that interesting. Also read what I wrote about doctors not being qualified to advise you.