Pharmacies want to keep us sick 🙁 is there ANY truth to this?

[TuscanMum]

There’s a lady I know who posts lots of pharmaceutical conspiracies on a regular basis. Things like, they have a vested interest in keeping us sick so as we continue to need their drugs.

The sane part of me says this is rubbish, can’t be allowed, no way.

But a little part of me wonders.🙁

I have a vested interest in this as I’ve an autoimmune disease and keep trying different types of strong medication that haven’t yet worked but Rheumatologist says it’s not cureable and drugs are necessary.

Met a man, just today, who said his wife has lupus but refuses meds and just manages with diet.

I’d be interested to hear what others think or know about this?

Of course not.

People who say 'cure for cancer' sum up that they have no idea what they are talking about as cancer isn't just one entity so it stands to reason there isn't one cure.

New diseases are being discovered and things change.

Big pharma may develop drugs but how much money do you think they spend trying to develop others that don't work?

I take CBD along with my prescription tramadol and oxycodone. Because I have chronic pain and the opioids let me live a good quality and functional life. When I came off them during IVF and pregnancy I was unable to function I was in so much pain. Just because it didn't work for you backscratcher doesn't mean it doesn't work for those of us who really need it

Great that you don't. I do.

@bananafish81 Norfolk.

Totally agree dipping

not even one iota of scientific intelligence

Not UK, so don't panic upon reading my anecdote...

My daughter was prescribed something by a GP that I subsequently found out was very inappropriate for a young child. The medication caused a year and a half of awful problems for her, and multiple appointments and follow ups.

It was recently suggested to me that perhaps the GP had prescribed this in order to ensure we were back there often (private practice, decide your own prices kinda place). I would sincerely hope not. But it did make me think.

If that was his plan (it was in a famously corrupt country), it didn't work well for him, as we promptly moved overseas again and someone else got all that repeat business.

Slightly different to "do they prevent cure", but it did also make me wonder if they actively cause harm.

As I say, I'm optimistically presuming medics don't actually do this...

IME those wanting to push their brand of snake oil, fairy moon dust and magic water are the ones wanting to profit from people being ill.

Whenever I read this kind of thing I remember something Sherlock said in Elementary about how large groups of people cannot keep secrets.

Maybe there are some people in the industry who would happily hide a cure to continue making a profit, but the majority of them are decent people. And lots of them will have loved ones affected by diseases so I doubt they'd keep the cures hidden from them.

The reality is that, for example, cancer is a ridiculously complex disease. There won't be one single cure for cancer. Even within each cancer type there are different mutations that respond to different drugs.

Personally I'm not a fan of capitalism at all. But it always strikes me as unfair that the pharmaceutical industry is targeted so specifically. Our society is obsessed with wealth. It seems unfair to expect certain types of company not to pursue profits in the same way.

Pharmacies are small (or not so small in the case of national chains) business and of course wish to make money. Which is why they sell corn plasters and deodorant and face creams and all sorts of things as well as prescription medication.

'Big Pharma" IMO do have undue influence over what kind of drugs get researched, developed and marketed. I don't think they 'want us to be sick' but rather want us to worry about being sick. A lot of preventative meds would be utterly unnecessary if the kind of money spent on statins and antihypertensives was spent on food and exercise programs for the general population, for instance.

Cannabinoids to not cure anything but they may alleviate some symptoms of some life-limiting illnesses.
'Orphan drugs' are those aimed at rare conditions and it is difficult/impossible to make R+D for these meds work, so they don't happen.
Far worse IMO is that a world-wide illness that kills millions, like malaria (and other infectious diseases that mainly affect developing countries) is not a priority to 'Big Pharma' because the affected populations are not rich

There are at least 200 different cancers. Cannabis won't cure them all.

There are at least 200 different cancers. Cannabis won't cure them all.

But I smoke a fat doobie every day and I'm not dead yet, therefore it must be good for me

😂

No.

I know someone who believes this and who 'manages' her son's rampant ADHD with fish oils and letting him have his own way all the time accommodations.

Really she's managing nothing, the child is a complete shit whose been suspended countless times in this school year because he can't control his behaviour and nobody else is allowed to try.

but she truly believes she is sticking it to Big Pharma [roll]

Hmm nope - cancer is not one type of disease. Even the methods we currently have differ depending on the type of cancer. Even within breast or ovarian cancers there are many subtypes that all require different treatments

However if they did know a cure of cancer just think of the price they could charge for that drug

Ps we know aspirin can prevent bowel cancers in genetic conditions - so they are not hiding that cheap preventative treatment.

Don't listen the conspiracy nuts and the folks who wouldn't know science if it bit them on the face. There are a lot of whack jobs telling you a lot a crap on the internet.

Yeah big pharma wants to keep me sick and give me drugs' (on prescription so a tenner or free) Ha! I'll show them by taking stuff I buy off someone on the internet for £100 a month. The bloke I buy them off is a hero.

Take the cancer stuff for example. In order for that to work we would have to assume that thousands of our most intelligent and hard working citizens are either dupes of the Big C or are in on it and lying to their patients, family and friends.
not just doctors but nurses, clerical staff , physios, hospice staff etc.

It is such a load of bollocks.

I'm not saying Big Pharma are perfect. But I certainly don't think they are deliberately keeping people sick.

Alternative medicine is by far the greater scam.

Yes Grimbles. I'm sick of the 'Big Pharma' woo bollocks. Am having a particularly hard time at the moment dealing with a woo alternative meds family member, a sick child and a cancer suffering DM.

Anyone who works for big pharma slogging their guts out to make sure drugs are as safe as they can possibly be would find this "hilarious"

My husband is a doctor and he definitely does not get paid for prescriptions. Besides, the whole Big Pharma thing doesn't take into account of the fact that doctors are people with families too. I have cancer and has my husband warned me off medication and suggested I take Aloe or Canabinoids or a vegan diet? No. If drugs were keeping us sick, it would be the worst kept secret in the world because every doctors partner and child would be warned off them.

I think if you have any medical condition it would be in your interest to research effects of diet and lifestyle. Dr can only reccommend drugs

You have at it. But whatever you do, don't be one of those enormous pricks that lectures other people on how to cure their or their childrens serious conditions with diet and lifestyle, or crystals, or homeopathy, or apple fucking cider vinegar.
I swear the next person who tells me I should try cannabis oil and reiki for my kid and ditch the nasty old pharma (that keeps them alive) I will punch them in their stupid face.

Watch the science of fasting and also “fat sick and nearly dead” .

I agree with you and I think the food industry is leading us on a merry dance too.

Personally I use fasting to help with my own bodily issues and working well for me

My response to this is a bit muddled.

Simplistic statements like 'cannabis cures cancer' are daft, in fact, inhaling carbon monoxide through burning things increases your lung cancer risk, so cannabis joints, on top of just cigarettes, appear to increase your lung cancer risk.

No-one is quite clear what it is in cannabis that might have medicinal effects, or rather there's more than one thing in it and it varies between strains (CBD/THC)- it definitely could have a therapeutic effect if taken in a non-harmful way like pills or vaped. One huge problem in the UK is that it's a Schedule One drug which means it is classified as having no benefit, which means it can't be tested in trials very easily- I am a supporter of the move towards taking this off Schedule One so proper trials can be done across a range of conditions.

It's a bit weird to say there's no cure for HIV/AIDS, there isn't but in the 80's it was a pretty much always fatal disease within a really short time frame, and now, thanks to antiretrovirals, people live decades with HIV and babies can be prevented from getting it from their mothers. That's amazing progress- although the issue of the drugs then not being cheap enough or available enough to the poorer nations and people is then the issue for the pharma companies.

Again, what does it mean cancer can't be cured? Childhood leukemia survival rates have improved and improved due to treatments and now stand at around 90%. Lots of women are surviving longer and longer with breast cancer, many cured. There isn't 'a' cure for cancer as it isn't one thing, but some great progress has been made in some areas- not in others however, and the UK still does worse than elsewhere, not necessarily at the actual pharma/treatment end, but at recognising and diagnosing and getting quick enough treatment, which is not a pharma failure but a systems one.

There is a lot of money to be made from sick people though, and from 'lifestyle' disorders which are ongoing through an entire lifetime such as high blood pressure/cholesterol (e.g. statins), IBS, anti-d's...medicine or rather doctors also manage to kill or create severe side-effects in quite a large population per year as well (iatrogenic deaths), it's the third leading cause of death after heart disease or cancer.

It's complicated and not as simple as 'Big Pharma' bad at all!

One thing we are working on in Pharmacy right now, is getting people off medication. Particularly in the elderly population.

They don’t need to. Unless we are very unfortunate we will get old and sick and in pain and die anyway. Sorry to be grim, but it’s true.

No. That's just stupid. If the medicine didn't work doctors wouldn't prescribe it.