Battling Healthcare

I’ve owned my own business for many years. Before I began my work in patient advocacy and empowerment, I was a marketer, and advised dozens of businesses of all sizes (from individual professional services like lawyers and therapists to large corporations like GE and Kodak.) I get business, I understand development of income streams and I fully realize that profitability is always the goal among these businesses.

But I also know that profitability and business models are at the very heart at what is WRONG with healthcare. No matter what the problem with the system, its roots are grounded in the need to make money by someone.

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… you probably think they don’t affect you, because you only pick up your prescriptions at the local pharmacy, or get samples from your doctor….

But you would be wrong. Counterfeit drugs may be found in your own medicine cabinet — and you have no way of knowing they are counterfeit.

Surprised? I was too — and because I too often have to be so cynical in my work — I never should have been so surprised. Why? Because so much of healthcare is about money. And counterfeiting is all about money — making it for the perpetrators, and saving it for those who have to pay, whether that’s a pharmacy or a health insurer. And who’s money and lives is it costing? Ours, because we are the patients.

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It was revealed this week in documents released by Merck over the Vioxx debacle that we were all scammed — patients, doctors, stockholders and legitimate drug researchers.

If you aren’t familiar with the Merck and Vioxx scandal, let me bring you up to date.

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We used to see the ads on TV. Your cholesterol goes out of whack because of two things: cholesterol from the food you eat, and genetic cholesterol problems. So, being the good and wise patient you were, you discussed the subject with your doctor and he or she suggested Vytorin. Why? Because it was said to battle both types of cholesterol. And that can help prevent heart attacks and strokes.

Turns out that those clever marketers at both Shering Plough and Merck — the manufacturers of the components of Vytorin — had us all fooled. Billions of dollars later (yes — I mean billions!) they announced that — oops! Vytorin not only doesn’t work to reduce cholesterol and protect us from heart attacks and strokes, but it might even cause us additional cholesterol problems, worse than we had before we took the drug!

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