While perusing the usual websites on my lunch break, I came across the following article on Click2Houston- “Pfizer Gets Approval For Lipitor For Kids: Chewable Lipitor Designed For Children With Genetic Diseases.” At first glance, one may not think much about it. Hey they’re helping kiddos with genetic diseases, sounds legit right? Since my awesome lean cuisine was still too hot to enjoy as I would actually be fantasizing about it being a delectable piece of cheesecake instead, I decided to read the article. A red flag went up as I started to read paragraph two of this article. It read as follows, “The approval includes children whose high blood fats are due to an inherited disease that causes extremely high cholesterol levels, familial hypercholesterolemia.” Ah ha, the magical candy coated words of “approval includes”, a.k.a. it sounds better if we phrase it this way as if our main goal is to help these genetically predispositioned kids out and improve their quality of life. Call me cynical, but at the end of the day what does any company want, that’s right cha ching-the money. As I read on, had I been caught up in my lean cuisine/cheesecake wanna be fantasy of a lunch and missed the words “approval includes,” the next few paragraphs would have made all anything but crystal clear. Pfizer looses its patent for Lipitor in November of 2011, and we all know what this means! Awesome co pays for generic drugs. Yippee for us the consumer, but a melancholy and sobering day for a pharmaceutical company. Long story short, Pfizer already obtained a patent extension in the US and now wants to get one in Europe so it can milk its cash cow drug for all it’s worth since it’s now approved for those unfortunate children that need it. Oops, wait the truth comes out at the end of the article-which they hoped you wouldn’t reach. ” Until recently, cholesterol drugs have been primarily taken by adults with heart disease, but their use has expanded to younger patients as more obese, sedentary teenagers and adolescents develop heart disease and diabetes.” Ah ha, the spin of phrasing your drug for genetic diseases, as opposed to your real target audience of obese, sedentary teenagers and adolescents just sounds better. So back to my thought, do you think pharmaceutical companies are undermining the health of our youth by supplying a magic pill to fix the problems caused by poor food choices and lack of exercise?
Switching to the occupational side of this train of thought, I started looking around and noticing that many people where I work (a medical center) eat absolute rubbish for lunch and snacks. And like any good domino effect, people’s food choices at work affect their performance, health, attitudes, and ultimately workplace related injuries potentially. My thought here is that with TV and advertising bombarding consumers with a drug for this and that and everything, do people become lackadaisical in their rationalization for actions they take? Could this idea of a drug-topia end up affecting the healthy-worker effect?
Perhaps you agree or perhaps you find my thoughts that merely of a ranting woman with delusions of cheesecake grandeur. At any rate, you have to admit they didn’t entitle the article “Pfizer Gets Approval For Lipitor For Kids: Chewable Lipitor Designed For Obese Children Who Don’t Exercise and Survive on Junk Food.”
http://www.click2houston.com/health/24156140/detail.html accessed on July 9, 2010
I totally agree with you. I don’t even know why drug companies are allowed to advertise to the public. Who are we to choose our own drugs? That’s the doctor’s job in my opinion. Although, I suppose they pressure the drs too with drug reps and whatnot.
Our society wants the easy way out and a quick fix. Screw the side effects.