In my last blog I discussed industries (yes, ENTIRE indsustries) that profit from your pain. This time I want to talk about industries that profit from you being sick.
If you have met me for more than about 5 minutes, you probably know that I love to laugh and watch/listen to comedy. One of my favorite comedians, Chris Rock said years ago in one of his special’s “the money’s in the medicine.” Meaning that big pharma is not incentavized to cure things because if you are cured you don’t need continued treatment (drugs) but if you are ‘gettig treatment’ you have to keep buying medication. And he was right!
Let’s start with psychiatrty!
The Diagnostic and Stastical Manual (DSM) is what we in the US use to come up with standardized laungage for mental health disorders. It’s basically the industry standard for how we diagnose people. Makes sense, right? It’s a way to standardize care… In theory.
Like many really good ideas, it started out pretty simply and then took on a life of it’s own. We are currently on the fifth official revision (there have been other modifications along the way) and over the years, it has changed with the times. Some of the shifts have come from more research and perspectives like better and/or different treatment recommendations and outcomes. Others have come from a better understanding of nuerology and how the body works.
Most of the people on the board of the DSM, the decision makesrs, are psychiatrists. That doesn’t seem ground breaking. In fact, that should make sense. In theory, psychiatrists are doing the bulk of the diagnosing, leading research and treatment. Would your opinion change at all if it I told you that most of the board members received some form of income from pharmasuitical companies? Because they do. Almost all of the board members for the current DSM are in the pocket of big pharma. So it should also not surprise you that there were A LOT of changes from DSM IV-TR (the last one) to the current DSM V.
So basically, the pharmaceutical companies that make money each time one of us is told we have a disorder and are handed a prescription wrote THE BOOK on how to define disorders.
Mind blown yet?
Big pharma does it but they are the only ones… Remember 20-25 years ago when you couldn’t watch the news without seeing something about how a tabacco company hid studies about making us sick? It’s still happending! Pharmasuitical companies, the food industry are all spending BILLIONS of dollars to keep us hooked on their products.
Sugar…
I’ll be honest, until I few years ago I paid zero attention to sugar but now I see that it’s in just about everything. Why is it in my bacon?!?!?! But the sugar industry much like the pharmasuical industry has lied, cheated and solen their way into our homes and bodies. They have hidden studies that did not paint sugar in a good light, they have skewed research results in order to make their product not seem so bad when it is actaully making a lot of us ill.
So do pharmasuitical companies. Did you know that in order to get a drug approved by the FDA you only have to present three research studies? Which means, if I have a drug that I want to get out on the market and I do fifty studies but three of them and I can design and skew to make it look useful, I can get it approved. After that, I can spend money to ‘train’ and ‘educate’ physicians (both psychiatirsts and PCPs) on how to prescribe it and air commericals for you during your favorite show about when you need it!!
YEAH, they are cheating!!
But more than that, they have created a system that tells us how to be and stay sick. And that should make us all angry.
I’m not saying that I don’t believe that mental illness exhists, I do. What I am saying is that we are all being sold on the idea that there is a cure or even a problem where there may not actaully be one!!
Autism.
There has been some really interesting research to suggest that symtoms of austism can be mittigated and for some even eliminated with gut health improvments!! It’s difficult to get that reseach funded and you certainly don’t hear about that stuff in the news often… Why is that? Well, the news is free for us to watch. They get paid by selling comercials. If the news busts big pharma and big food for keeping us sick each night, they will lose advertisers. So they aren’t going to tell you…
So technically, the media is in on the scam too. They can’t present us with totally unbiased information and continue to do business as they have.
So what now?
Culturally, we have gotten to a mindset that tells us there is a solution for everything and it can be done quickly. I suppose I believe that there is a solution to most things... But how many really good, special and worthwhile things have happened in your life that were quick and simple? I’m guessing not that many. Most things, including physical and mental health are a process and take more than one step. Also, rarely have I found that one size fits all so you may not be able to do what the people around you are doing to get the same results.... You may have do experiment and do something different to find what works for YOU.
As always, I’m here and ready to talk if you need support.