Reading and writing and… Big Pharma money?
More evidence just in: Big Pharma's fingers are spread throughout every inch of the medical pie.
It's not bad enough that they have the vast majority of mainstream doctors stuffed deep into their collective pocket. The very medical schools these doctors come from have been enlisted to further the cause of the drug companies with our newest MD's. They're slowly tossing out "First, do no harm" in favor of "Give and ye shall receive."
Academic heads are instilling this culture into their students through example. A researcher did a survey to see exactly what was considered standard practice now in medical schools in regard to their relationships with the pharmaceutical industry.
And the results should come as no surprise to you if you've read more than a few House Calls. Nearly two-thirds of academic department heads who responded have financial strings to these drug companies in one way or another.
Many of these academic heads have actually moonlighted as consultants on the payrolls of the drug giants. They've also collected freebies in the form of food and drink—a practice that evidently has been handed down as a grand tradition to mainstream doctors to carry on in their own practices.
Not all of the accredited medical schools or teaching hospitals responded to this particular survey. I figure they must have found it too embarrassing to admit the truth. Or else they were too busy merry-making at yet another drug company- sponsored luncheon.
A mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry can't understand what all the fuss is about. He doesn't see this tight-knit relationship as being a problem. I would suspect he wouldn't.
Medical schools are climbing into bed with the drug companies, evidently willing to ignore the pursuit of real and true science and their original ideals of actually healing the patient. Now, it's "all in favor of drug company-backed science say 'aye'."
The drug company science that is being adopted is, unfortunately, as manufactured as the unnatural chemicals they cook up in their labs. However, that isn't stopping it from becoming the new standard. Just look around at all the evidence surrounding us: Television commercials, magazine ads, and stacks of prescriptions handed out by so many mainstream doctors who have forgotten why they went into medicine in the first place. It all points to one idea: In order to live in this world, you need to load your counter, side table and medicine cabinet with pills.
A free flow of ideas is one thing. The free flow of money—with strings attached— is entirely another, especially now that it undermines the very foundation that medicine was built on. For all of our technical advances, our mentality will begin to regress to the Dark Ages if these types of relationships aren't dragged out into the light.
