So, is there a cure for Big Pharma? Is the prevailing assumption, that Big Pharma is doing the best it can, valid, as it creates chemicals which treat symptoms endlessly while concurrently producing harmful side effects, some deadly. The answer is yes, once you understand that intent determines outcomes. The sole motivational imperative of Big Pharma is to create profit and we can be damned sure they are doing their very best for themselves as they treat symptoms for as long as the patient lives.
A google search shows Big Pharma and medical research centers have created no cures in the past thirty years thus reinforcing the understanding that intent determines outcomes. Consider this: some years ago an oncologist told my wife and I that two medical researchers created a cure for one of about a dozen blood cancers. This fix involved monoclonal antibodies and the cure was absolute--no side effects and no continuing profits. I speculate that these errant researchers, imbued with the decency normal to those seeking cures, are no longer able to find work.
I do consider Big Pharma to be morally corrupt,and given the harm they incur and defend with a staff of lawyers, to also be a criminal enterprise. However, Big Pharma is partnered with the medical profession without whose co-operation they could not exist and function as they do. There was a time when the Hippocratic Oath and its 'do no harm' mandate underpinned the practice of medicine. Today, essentially all prescribed pharmaceuticals produce side effects seriously in conflict with the Oath and often compromising liver, kidney and heart functions. New antibiotics can cause your Achilles tendon to snap, brain swelling and hallucinations. I know each of you can add to this list of horrors.
So, what happened to 'do no harm'? Certainly Big Pharma has influence within medical schools such that the product of these schools, MD's, no longer have a meaningful grasp of the import and significance of the Oath as it relates to pharmaceuticals. The consequence of this shift is that the medical profession has ceded the Hippocratic Oath and its 'do no harm' mandate to Big Pharma which cares naught about any oath. The medical profession has now absolved itself of its responsibility to honor the oath.
I suggest that the cure for Big Pharma is to create and control medical research facilities, many currently owned by our government, staffed with researchers dedicated to cures. All profit motive must be frogmarched out of these research centers. It is this simple--intent determines outcomes. Still,saying the words does not make it happen . It will take brave, determined people with real credibility in health care coming together to take back their responsibility and affinity for the Hippocratic Oath. Yes, the medical profession must step up and organize themselves to recapture their souls.
There is some semblance of precedence in the hundreds of doctors who have supported single payer health care.
Here, I refer you to Stephen Schwartz's important little book 'The Eight Laws of Change' wherein he states that if we want to contribute to a better future we must, when faced with choice, to always chose the more life affirming option.
I have fairly placed the burden for a cure for Big Pharma on the medical profession. Still, the true responsibility for our society is ours. Do we collectively have the intellectual and spiritual capacity to insist that these changes happen, that we move from the dark into the light?
Don Scotten
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