{"id":340132,"date":"2017-12-19T06:16:49","date_gmt":"2017-12-19T05:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/how-patients-who-kill-the-messenger-are-pharmas-best-salespeople\/"},"modified":"2017-12-19T06:16:49","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T05:16:49","slug":"how-patients-who-kill-the-messenger-are-pharmas-best-salespeople","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/how-patients-who-kill-the-messenger-are-pharmas-best-salespeople\/","title":{"rendered":"How Patients Who \u201cKill the Messenger\u201d Are Pharma\u2019s Best Salespeople"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<div id=\"attachment_98348\" style=\"max-width: 520px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-98348\" src=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2017\/12\/Screen-Shot-2017-12-17-at-9.51.23-PM.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"337\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Charles Williams | <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u201cPrince was not addicted to pain medication. Prince had a medical condition \u2014 chronic pain \u2013which is criminally under-treated\u2026. Physical dependence is not addiction.\u201d So reads one of many articles that defend opioids and blame their\u00a0<em>restrictions<\/em>\u00a0for the nation\u2019s opioid crisis. Right.<\/p>\n<p>When journalists present evidence of a prescription drug being dangerous, ineffective, unethically marketed and even unnecessary we are often met with: \u201cHow dare you suggest I am not sick?\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re not taking my drugs!\u201d They sound like gun advocates whose response to better background check laws for guns is \u201cyou\u2019re not taking my gun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to aggressive Pharma marketing, seven out of ten Americans now take a prescription drug and many of the drugs are far from safe.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>* 100 people a day die in the US from opioids.<\/p>\n<p>* Statins are linked to memory loss<\/p>\n<p>* GERD meds are linked to early<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/heartburn-drugs-proton-pump-inhibitors-ppi-risks-prilosec-nexium-prevacid\/\">\u00a0death risks<\/a><\/p>\n<p>* SSRI antidepressants are\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/science\/2016\/03\/14\/antidepressants-can-raise-the-risk-of-suicide-biggest-ever-revie\/\">linked\u00a0<\/a>to suicide<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Pharma has succeeded, through millions of dollars of advertising, in doing two cagey things: it has convinced people who might actually be fine that they have \u201cdepression,\u201d GERD and other conditions and it has downplayed the risks of drugs to treat those conditions. Pharma\u2019s maneuver affects more than the drug takers\u2013it raises everyone\u2019s health care costs and taxes through selling expensive, brand-name drugs. Usually safer and less expensive drugs are available\u2013if people even&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2017\/12\/18\/how-patients-who-kill-the-messenger-are-pharmas-best-salespeople\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo by Charles Williams | CC BY 2.0 \u201cPrince was not addicted to pain medication. Prince had a medical condition \u2014 chronic pain \u2013which is criminally under-treated\u2026. Physical dependence is not addiction.\u201d So reads one of many articles that defend opioids and blame their\u00a0restrictions\u00a0for the nation\u2019s opioid crisis. Right. When journalists present evidence of a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-340132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}