There’s a¬†really great article over at Science Based Medicine¬†by Val Jones that talks about an example of what I would call an abuse by the pharmaceutical companies. The drug, donepezil, is marketed to patients suffering dementia such as Alzheimer’s, and all of the studies show only a minimal at best impact to the patient. There are certainly certain particular conditions where the drug has a fairly decent showing (there’s a good link in the comments that talks about this), but all in all, the effect does not appear to be worthy of the risks of the drug.
The companies who market the drug have made a lot of money selling hope to the families of the patients, and that hope hasn’t panned out to a whole lot of anything. Incidents such as this are unfortunate, because they underscore the arguments of the alt-med crowd that pharmaceutical companies are greedy monsters solely motivated by profit. Well, the truth is they are. All corporations are. In fact, that’s pretty much the legal description of a corporation. They are required by law to actively pursue the bottom line. And the question could be raised to ask how selling a drug that will give even marginal benefit is worse than selling a line of baby toys that offer no significant improvement to quality of life. From a purely business mindset, most of the products sold in the world don’t in any way benefit us, so from that perspective it’s not a fair thing to ask. Let the buyer beware!
But I don’t think that holds water. To me, the bigger question is whether or not the patients and/or families who were making the decision to put their loved ones on the drug were given the knowledge that this medicine would probably not get them any significant gains. If it was me and it was my father who was lying in a nursing home, I may well make the decision to spend the money on the medicine at least on a short term basis to see if there was any actual improvement in his condition. But I’d be spitting-bees-mad if I thought this drug was actually going to help.
Of course, the alt-med crowd don’t shine the light of scrutiny on their own snake oil salesmen in the same fashion. The billions of dollars made by alternative medicine are never questioned, and the efficacy of their nostrums are almost never at issue. If a homeopath gives you the wrong kind of water — did I just write that? the wrong kind of water? ugh! — you go back and get a new remedy. Obviously the fault was not the fact that the remedy doesn’t do what you need it to, it just wasn’t right for your particular disturbance.
No matter what the case is, when you take advantage of the sick and the families of sick people,¬†there’s really only one word for it. You’re an asshole. If you’re a multinational company who makes billions doing it, you’re just a bigger asshole. That’s really all there is to it. I wanted to share this link because I firmly believe that we need to share the good and the bad. Who watches the Watchmen? Skeptics do!
Jim
Hmm. I’ve read some of the comments on this piece, and it sounds like there’s more to the drug than meets the eye. Perhaps I was too quick to get on the bandwagon? or at the very least, I didn’t take the time to get the full picture. Bad skeptic! Bad!
It sounds from the comments provided by people who actively prescribe this medicine like there are very real benefits in slowing the process of moving from Mild Cognitive Impairment to Alzheimer’s Disease. It may be as little as an extra six months, but that’s a significant impact.
Fortunately, there’s experts who know better than I do. I strongly suggest reading through the comments on this, as there’s a lot of great information there. And it all points to me being wrong, which should make some of you giggle a bit.
I don’t think you’re wrong. One commenter is splitting hairs, but the fact is that most of the people out there who are taking Aricept are doing so off-label without any tangible benefits. It’s right to be skeptical about the cost/benefits of this class of drugs.