It's one of the most widely-held beliefs in health care: that sky-high prescription drug prices are the key to innovation, and without 100,000% markups (or more) on prescription drugs, pharmaceutical companies would halt research and never find cures for chronic disease.
There are so many individual myths in this belief that we have to unravel them one by one. First, there's the belief that pharmaceutical profits go to fund R&D in the first place. In reality, only around 14% of revenues go to fund R&D activities for pharmaceutical companies. A much higher percentage is spent on -- guess what? -- advertising, marketing, public relations and bribing physicians (but it's not called that on the balance sheet). In other words, a far greater percentage of drug revenues are spent on propaganda than R&D.
Second, there's the belief that the cure to chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease is just around the corner, if only we had more money for research and innovation. This is pure medical bunk, and it's the same line the pharmaceutical industry has dished out for decades. Chemicals are not the answer to health: prevention is! To be healthy, we have to stop looking at ways to mask symptoms with drugs and start looking at how we prevent disease in the first place. And that comes from a lifetime of smart nutrition, healthy eating habits, avoidance of processed foods and metabolic disruptors, avoidance of dangerous personal care products, regular physical exercise and daily brain exercises.
Even then, when a person actually gets diagnosed with cancer, diabetes or heart disease, drugs are still not the answer: medicinal herbs, superfoods, acupuncture, homeopathic remedies and other holistic therapies offer all the cures a person needs. Graviola, a medicinal herb from the Amazon, is reportedly 10,000 times more effective than chemotherapy in shrinking breast cancer tumors. Spirulina, a superfood from the ocean, contains a powerful cancer-busting pigment phytochemical that has demonstrated truly miraculous anti-cancer effects in lab tests. Chlorella has been shown to greatly increase the survival rate of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. (Read Superfoods For Optimum Health to learn more.) Broccoli sprouts contain such powerful anti-cancer compounds that if the pharmaceutical companies could patent broccoli, they'd charge you $100 a serving! The list goes on and on...
The point is that the cures for chronic disease are already known. We don't need to "find a cure" for these diseases: they've already been found! What we need to do is legalize the cures that exist right now and stop the oppression of natural medicine at the hands of the FDA and organized medicine. What we need, frankly, is a revolution in modern medicine that puts chemical-based medicine where it belongs -- in the history books -- while sharing the benefits of naturopathic medicine.
The next time you hear the lie that pharmaceutical companies need to keep raking American customers over the coals in order to raise more money for "innovation," you'll know it's bunk. That's just a myth propagated by the industry and designed to ensure long-term profits from companies that care nothing about the public health. To Big Pharma, it's all about making more money, regardless of how many lies they have to tell.
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health author and award-winning journalist with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2010, Adams co-founded NaturalNews.TV, a natural health video sharing site that has now grown in popularity. He's also a noted pioneer in the email marketing software industry, having been the first to launch an HTML email newsletter technology that has grown to become a standard in the industry. Adams also serves as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a non-profit consumer protection group, and practices nature photography, Capoeira, martial arts and organic gardening. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds. Known as the 'Health Ranger,' Adams' personal health statistics and mission statements are located at www.HealthRanger.org
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Wednesday, July 21, 2004
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