The mmm Bitter Pill of Reality

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firsty
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The mmm Bitter Pill of Reality

Post by firsty » May 22nd, 2008, 4:26 pm

<a href="http://www.reason.com/blog/show/126495.html">Reason Magazine - Hit & Run > A Pill a Day Keeps the Doctor Away?</a>
More than half of Americans now take prescription meds to treat chronic health problems, according to a new study out today. The study is being played as bad news, with the wire services quoting doctors proclaiming that "things will get worse instead of getting better" and chalking the problem up to our "couch potato culture."

But digging deeper into the study reveals that much of the increase is the result of good preventive treatment for diseases that were once debilitating or fatal, like the use of allergy medication and steroid treatments to prevent asthma flareups in kids, and higher rates of antidepressant use, especially among young women.

(For more on the latter topic, re-read reason contributor Will Wilkinson's excellent article on whether an epidemic of depressive disorder is sweeping America. Answer: Not really)
The topic of prescription medication and its possible overuse has been hot recently. The tragic death of Heath Ledger, attributed to various prescription medications, served to launch the issue into the stratosphere of media attention and so now it is circling us, waiting for something else to happen, waiting for what we can only assume will be heartbreakingly devastating statistics proving that doctors are evil for prescribing possibly addictive or otherwise dangerous medications and that patients are faking their way to one of the diagnoses which will give them the opportunity to abuse yet another drug for recreational purposes.

But there is another way to look at this topic — this "problem" of so many people taking so much medication. Instead of considering its use and abuse to be the problem, we should be considering as the source of the problem the fact that so many Americans are suffering from serious health problems which can only be properly managed through various prescription cocktails.

What ails us

Nobody wants to be depressed. SSRIs make you feel like a zombie and they can wreak havoc on your liver and other internal organs, not to mention the side effects, which include weight gain, sexual disfunction and mood swings. It's not unimportant that when we look at those potential and common side effects, they are each of them the kind of thing that can cause depression in the first place and worsen it in the second place.

Other popular pills include ones that fight pain, restless leg syndrome, allergies, anxiety, heartburn and other esophageal conditions, sexual disfunction, sleep disorders, ADD, blood pressure and digestive problems. The medications used to treat these conditions can sometimes be addictive, expensive or so powerful that the negative side effects offset any health benefits.

What is disturbing to me isnt that so many patients are taking these meds, it's that so many patients <b>need</b> to take these meds. There is an underlying problem that is contributing to this rise in medicinal treatments, and it's something we should not be ignoring.

Worse — a common theme among patients being treated so heavily with medication is that many of their symptoms, while physical in nature, can in many cases be linked to disorders of the mind — anxiety, depression, worry, stress, etc.

What worries us?

Since 1971, the <a href="http://economistsview.typepad.com/econo ... -coll.html" target="_blank">financial situation for the average American family of four has become exponentially worse</a>. First, we're the first generation of Americans since before the Great Depression destined to be worse-off financially than our parents were. But thats just a vague accusation. Lets look at the facts.

That link in the previous paragraph goes to an hour-long presentation about the decline and imminent disappearance of the American middle class. I won't force you to spend an hour in front of your computer watching a movie, so here are the details:

Between the early 70s and the early 00s, discretionary spending for families has dropped significantly. This is money that we spend on items like food, clothing, decoration, gifts, etc. As examples, we are spending 38% less on clothing and 18% less on food — including eating out — than we did 30 years ago. Some other items are a wash — smoking is down, alcohol spending is up. But the idea that Americans are overconsuming is flat-out wrong. With more options in the retail industry to find cheap clothes, no-name food, etc., adjusted for inflation, our discretionary spending is way down.

And our savings has become negative — this is because we are carrying a balance on our consumer debt. So where is the money going? Why does it feel like we're always broke?

There was a 76% increase on mortgage payments, even though the average size of homes for the same demographic increased only from 5.8 rooms to 6.1 rooms (an increase of 5%). We've also seen a 74% rise in health insurance premiums, 100% more in child care, and 25% more in taxes. And the ROI (return on investment) for these items is similar to that of houses — our health insurance covers less than it did 30 years ago, but we're paying a lot more for it (which results in more out of pocket spending).

But the worst of it is that, in order to maintain the most basic lifestyle (which, and this is important, has a lot to do with where you live, because moving a few miles to the other side of town — and into higher-priced homes — has a direct impact on the quality of the school our children will attend), we must employ both parents. And we must do it persistently — there are more parents of 3-month old kids who are working full-time today than there were parents of 7-year-old kids working full-time 30 years ago. That has an obvious and direct impact on child care. But it also means that the "default" for most families is that both parents need to work. This means that instead of 1-car families, we are all 2-car families. And it means that the risk to each family — which is something that hangs over our heads constantly — has risen in nearly incalculable ways.

The risk that an American full-time worker will lose his or her job has gone up something like 4 times since the early 1970s. With both parents working, this means that each parent has a huge risk of losing their job due to cutbacks, jobs shifting overseas, layoffs, etc. Combined, this means that the risk to each family that they will lose necessary income is about 8 times greater than it was 30 years ago.

And since our non-discretionary spending has increased so much, there is no wiggle room. In 1971, if a parent was laid off, there was enough of a cushion to get by for a reasonable amount of time while that parent looked for a new job, and there was also the option of putting the other parent into the workforce for an entirely new paycheck. Food could be budgeted down, as could clothing, cigarettes, entertainment, etc.

But today, most of our spending is trapped in necessary items: our house, our cars, our health insurance, etc.

What cures us

Nobody needs to be reminded that today's financial climate for the average American family is stressful to say the least. These statistics prove it — and they demonstrate that this is not a cultural shift, in which people have changed their buying habits, their working habits, or their recreational habits in order to adjust to a changing society. Rather, this is simply what happens when our government gets its regulation habits all fucked up, gets its foreign trade policies twisted into confusing knots of corporate thievery, and changes the legal climate in such a way as to give every advantage to large, wealthy corporations at the obvious and direct expense of the average American.

So it's no wonder that we are seeing this frightening rise in prescription medication. Lets also point out that the pharmaceutical industry is collecting huge profits (it's not just the oil and food corporations), so the way that they are marketing, distributing and selling their products is contributing to the problem. A true and tangible problem with so many medications crossing the neighborhood pharmacy counter isnt that they are being ingested into people's bodies, it is that they are part of the price gouging that is going on in so many other areas of middle class American life that we have no control over. We can buy the cheaper loaf of bread and shift from meat-heavy meals to rice and pasta, but we cant change the price of a pill. So medication is just another one of the non-discretionary purchases killing the American family.

All of this points to a situation where the average American goes through his or her day worried, for very good reason, about money, their job, schools, college savings, etc. And as the situation worsens — brought on by an increase in deadly weather events, the price of gas nearing $4/gallon, the loss of the dollar's buying power, the food shortage, the health insurance debacle — the effect on our health gets worse right along with it.

So excuse me if I find cries to rid the world of effective pain medication because one of the side effects is "euphoria" to be hopelessly missing the point. Further, we would be better off if more of these prescriptions provided such pleasant side effects, because we need the distraction. We need to be comforted by something. And most of all, we need medication to deal with the physical manifestations of health problems which are becoming more and more obviously attached to the world around us. Greater pollution in the air and water is harming our health, as is the increased use of preservatives and artificial ingredients in the cheapest kinds of food available. Combine those with this American Stress, which seems to be be hitting people at younger and younger ages, and the problem should be clear: Too many people in America are sick.

So, if you'd like, go on and continue to rail about how doctors shouldnt be prescribing and patients shouldnt be taking all of these pills every day. But you'll be missing the point. American health is a symptom of a larger economic and social problem that is affecting the entire world. Dont kill the messenger, and dont attack the symptom of the problem — attack the problem.

But thats another truly American issue, isnt it? We're much better at ignoring the problem and attacking the messenger. The reality is, we're in bad shape and we need lots of help. If I can take a pill to ease the pain I feel every time I swallow, I'm going to take it. Because just the underlying economic problems in this country, my acid reflux isnt going anywhere.
and knowing i'm so eager to fight cant make letting me in any easier.

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gypsyjoker
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Post by gypsyjoker » June 11th, 2008, 12:50 am

I watched the video firsty. Glad I did

Elizabeth Warren, she has been a Harvard Law professor since 1995. I wonder, I hope Obama was in her class.

Good to read you again.
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'Blessed is he who was not born, Or he, who having been born, has died. But as for us who live, woe unto us, Because we see the afflictions of Zion, And what has befallen Jerusalem." Pseudepigrapha

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Post by stilltrucking » April 27th, 2009, 10:20 am

Speaking of reading.

I been reading The Thanatos Syndrome by Walker Percy. We are all taking pharmaceuticals.

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