News story not widely picked up in the U.S.: On Jan. 13 of this year, Mexican newspaper El Universal published a story titled “Europa acusa a OMS de ‘inflar’ epidemia” or “Europe accuses WHO of ‘inflating’ epidemic.” The gist of the story is that the European Union says the World Health Organization exaggerated the risks of swine flu. The story states “The Council of Europe denounced the possible pressure from pharmaceutical laboratories to exaggerate the situation and promote the application of vaccines and the sale of medicines.”

Furthermore, the paper states “Various countries (among them the U.S., Germany, France and Great Britain) are cutting off their requests for vaccines and are returning them now that it’s clear that the outbreak, declared a pandemic by the WHO in June, is not so severe.”

I wonder who among us could have guessed that the whole swine flu thing was a scam of some sort? It’s truly shocking that the drug companies are putting pressure on government officials (the WHO is a branch of the United Nations) to help them sell drugs. Well, I never!

I remember seeing countless news stories in November and December (including one in the Lobo) warning that there were not enough swine flu vaccines to go around. Now it turns out we’re returning unused vaccines, because, guess what, swine flu is not the biggest threat to America after all.

The take-home lesson here is not specific to swine flu. By placing the manufacturing of medicine in the hands of corporations concerned only with profit motive, we open ourselves up to this type of macabre comedy. A comedy continually played out over and over in an absurd theater of global politics.
The drug companies are engaged in a cultural battle, a war of ideas, and their enemy is us.

Last week on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, author Ethan Watters explained the thesis of his novel Crazy like us. He explained how the marketing of drugs to other countries, specifically the marketing of psychological medication, involves a change in the way other countries view mental health. There is a switch from considering something to be “normal” to considering it as “pathological.” In other words, the marketing of mental-health drugs requires a change in the entire mental map of a culture.

Watters disputed the claim that antidepressants are scientifically proven to help people with feelings of sadness. “Drug companies are creating the science to a huge
degree,” Watters said.

This conclusion seems to be supported by a recent International Herald Tribune article, “Popular drugs may help only severe depression.” The article recounts a recent study that antidepressants have the same effect as a placebo in all but the most depressed of patients. (Dr. Jan Fawcett, of the University of New Mexico, was an author of the study.) Another author of the study was quoted in the article as saying a large number of moderately depressed people, who would not likely see any benefit from the drugs, would certainly be considered candidates for antidepressant treatment.

Surely Lobo readers remember the reports from a few years ago that antidepressant use in teenagers actually increased suicide rates.

Add to this obvious abundance of evidence the fact that the same drugs are priced differently in different countries, according to the profit model. Large numbers of New Mexicans travel across the border to secure prescription drugs they otherwise would not be able to afford. This practice is illegal, but in the same country it is perfectly legal to deny a life-saving drug to a person because they cannot afford it.

This problem reaches beyond the drug industry to infect all areas of our health-care system. A member of my family works as an Intensive Care Unit nurse and complains that nurses in our system are treated as production machines. Efficiency is valued over quality in the nursing profession, the same way it is at a McDonald’s production line.

The root of the problem is the philosophy of capitalism. Our society is free and just with respect to those who can buy freedom and justice. Corporations legally treated as people can afford to purchase the most freedom and the most influence in our justice system. Consequently, Merck is allowed to continue to operate after producing a drug (Vioxx) that it knew would kill people, with the final death count being upward of 60,000. But a grandma who brings heart medication back from Mexico faces jail time. There’s simply no way to rectify this if your goal is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people.

Denying people medication they need to survive, using third world countries as test markets for drugs when they’re not sure they’re safe, distributing a product that they know will kill people, and misinforming the public about the dangers — all these things are crimes, plain and simple. And it’s clear that very few people in our government have any interest in prosecuting the companies.

Prescription drug companies are not just a problem in America, but in the whole world. It is a fact that prescription drugs kill more Americans every year than all illicit drugs combined. Now, doesn’t it make perfect sense that you can still go to jail for smoking a joint?