Why do Doctors Prescribe Drugs
That Are Not Good For Us?

This is one of the first questions that women ask when I tell them that bisphosphonate drugs could be dangerous to their health. If the drugs were bad then their doctors wouldn’t
be prescribing them, would they?

There are many reasons for doctors to prescribe drugs that later turn out to be dangerous. The first is that drugs and surgery are the two main weapons in the arsenal of allopathic medicine. The majority of doctors do not believe their patients are willing or able to make the lifestyle changes, e.g. diet and exercise, that would eliminate the need for most drugs. This is partly because many doctors themselves are unwilling to make lifestyle changes they know would benefit them.

Nowadays doctors don’t have the free time to learn about alternative solutions and often have been encouraged to think anything outside of allopathic medicine is quackery. With the growth of HMOs and highly regulated health care, it has been estimated that doctors spend
an average of 12 minutes with each patient per visit. The expedited way of medicine is to order a test, get the result and pass out a prescription. This may not be the vision that caused young people to enter medicine but it is the reality of health care today.

If the test is a bone test, then the prescription will be for a bisphosphonate drug because this is the ‘standard of care’. Standard of care means that most other doctors are using this prescription for this disease. If a doctor is accused of not adhering to the standard of care, he can be disciplined to the point of having his license to practice medicine taken away. This is not something a physician is willing to risk after the years he has spent on his education.

Now we get into the area of conflict of interest between doctors and drug companies, which is finally getting widespread attention from medical groups and schools around the country. According to Robert Bazell, chief health correspondent for NBC, “Reliable estimates put the drug industry’s expenditures on promotion to doctors at $18.5 billion a year – that’s about $30,000 a year for every physician in the US .”

That doesn’t mean that your doctor got a $30,000- check last year. It means that drug companies paid for many perks for doctors in lieu of cash. Drug companies start out with medical students, buying them books, lunches, and paying for educational events. Estimates are that a person in medical school gets some kind of a handout from a drug company every week. 80% of these students said they deserved these gifts when polled. They begin to see  drug reps as the good guys, people who will be there for them.

After graduation drug companies commonly pay for Continuing Education programs. Doctors are required to get so many credits a year for CE and don’t like to pay for that themselves.

A new code adopted in 2002 banned many of the golf outings, athletic tickets, trips and lavish dinners commonly given to doctors by the drug companies. Now the code permits modest meals in the course of business. That means that drug makers pay out hundreds of millions of dollars per year in free lunches for doctors and all their staff while they pitch their drugs.

Dr John G Scott, assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey , cited several studies that show that these lunches, plus small gifts like sticky pads, pens and drug samples can lead doctors to prescribe the more expensive
brand names when generic drugs would be just as effective.

The drug industry employs about 90,000 reps. That’s a lot of people out there making a living by influencing doctors. Obviously it’s working or they wouldn’t still be picking
up their checks. In many cases doctors are certain that they are not being influenced by these friendly and generous people but their prescription rates prove that they are mistaken. The interesting thing is that drug companies have access to doctors prescription records so they can see what is working and who to target.

With this symbiotic relationship between the drug companies and doctors, the reps are the source of most information about the drugs they are pushing. And these guys twist the facts very cleverly. A doctor told me that Fosomax was great because it cut risk of hip fracture
in half. That is an example of relative benefit. But the absolute reduction in risk was down from a 2% chance of fracture to 1%.

So you have a 2% risk of fracture over the age of 75 without Fosomax and 1% risk if you take a drug for years that could do you great harm and has had no long-term testing. When I put it that way it’s pretty clear that it’s not worth the risk. How about when I say it cuts fracture
risk in half?

From tricks with words and numbers and the withholding of negative drug test results, to articles that are written for medical journals by the drug companies and then signed by doctors, the evidence is in that drug companies are not honest. This is business in the US today.

We have to keep very clear on one fact. Drug companies make more profit than almost any other marketing group and their intention is to keep that profit growing any way they can. Our health and well-being are not very important to them and some doctors seem to be a little slow in picking up on that fact. But the good news is that there are many more doctors
realizing that drugs can be harmful. Many of my customers for the weight vest have told me that they were given bisphosphonates for five years and that the results at the end of that time are not good. Many of their doctors are unwilling to keep prescribing drugs that are not working.

Disclaimer: Nothing on this site is to be construed as medical advice. I am not a medical
practitioner and have no ability to diagnose or treat disease. This site is intended for informational purposes only. Everyone should make their own health decisions after getting all the information they need.