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When you think you’re near death in an ambulance rocking through the midnight streets with sirens wailing and the paramedics are trying to save your sorry ass, you are likely to suspend at least for the moment any problems you might have with Big Pharma

Some years ago I unexpectedly found myself – well, who ever expects it – on a gurney in a big red ambulance rushing through late-night rain-slicked city streets, possibly dying of a heart attack. As we careened around corners, sirens wailing, a couple of calm and earnest paramedics were putting an oxygen mask over my nose and mouth, attaching wires to my chest, and sticking needles in my arm.

I remember thinking briefly about how I was a devout believer in the evils of Big Pharma and that no mysterious chemicals would ever be allowed into my veins. Let me tell you, my friends, that was a very brief and fleeting thought. The choice between meeting my Maker and taking a flyer with Big Pharma was a no-contest.

In the years since that traumatic midnight ambulance experience, Big Pharma has come to personify more than ever the ultimate in corporate greed and ethical expedience – that means ethics flexibly convenient for the situation. Reams of media exposure about overt scientific fraud, misinformation and illegal marketing abuses, safety scares and recalls, thousands of injuries and deaths, and massive law suits have solidified that view.

Governmental and regulatory collusion to subvert the market and prevent consumer litigation has only accelerated distrust of our lawmakers. Imagine your wife, husband or child turned into a blood-thirsty zombie by some badly-tested and ill-approved pharmaceutical, only to discover that you’re legally prevented from seeking justice in a court of law. That’s not a situation we want to face.

Even the peer-reviewed scientific literature can no longer be fully trusted. Major medical mags have continued to publish test results that were either flawed or outright tampered with to make so-so drugs look better than they are or to hide seriously dangerous side effects.

The media has jumped on the bandwagon too. Major magazine stories, newspaper articles, radio and television shows, even popular films such as The Constant Gardener and Michael Moore’s Sicko, have only pounded Big Pharma’s tarnished reputation even more.

Big Pharma, which began in antiquity as our shamans, our gurus, our feared and respected witch doctors and healers – those who possessed mysterious knowledge about the substances that can alter and heal our bodies and minds – is no longer the respected provider of all that is life-saving, life-affirming – and even life-taking when considered necessary.

Big Pharma has morphed from ultimate healer to ultimate destroyer, a role never imagined by the first Australopithecus who stooped to taste a handful of wild berries and, head spinning, perceived all the wonderful possibilities.

What is needed now is a full examination of the disease that has brought Big Pharma to its knees, a condition for which there is no quick fix from a potion or pill. We need an official investigation of all concerned – lawmakers, regulators, drug testers and Big Pharma itself – one that will lead us to recommendations for saving this industry from melt-down, and help prevent future public drug disasters too.

The investigation should look at two main areas:

1.    An overhaul of common procedural practices for drug testing performance, reporting and approvals, to remove any possibility of the substandard results we are unquestionably suffering from now;

2.    A ramp-up of enforcement of all the codes of ethical conduct governing business and government, important beyond measure for an industry that holds the power of life and death in its hands – and that’s not some catchy slogan, folks, that’s our lives and our deaths, yours and mine.

With such a plan of action, perhaps we can return to this once-vital industry the productivity and continued expansion it needs to sustain research and develop safer and even more effective and life-saving new drugs, while weaning out and discarding those that are only marginally helpful, unhelpful and outright dangerous.

And like those incredible paramedics years ago on my first ambulance ride, along with the ER nurses and doctors who later toiled solely and selflessly on my behalf – maybe Big Pharma can recover the support and respect that any dedicated life-saving activity truly deserves.

In our activity of providing medical drug detox services, we have seen a major shift from illicit street drugs to prescription drugs from Big Pharma. I invite you to share your comments, ideas and experiences with or about Big Pharma and your prescriptions.

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