TOPICS

healthmedicine
The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. — Jesus
Wall Street has three major players — pharmaceuticals, oil and banking. The first is the only one that has been growing at 20% a year in the last one decade or so. The pharmaceuticals lobby is thrice as big and powerful as that of oil, although oil is much bigger than drugs in total turnover! To understand how the industry works one must read the new book by two French medical specialists appointed by the former French President Nicolas Sarkozy to study the working of the drugs lobby in the country. Although the book is in French, Kim Wilsher of the The Guardian has written about this book and the interview with the authors on September 14, 2012.
The best part of the interview was the answer given by the first author: “There is nothing revolutionary in this book. This has all been known for some time.” I was happy as I was writing about this in India, the U.K. and the U.S. for at least four decades but to no avail. The powers that be do not seem to take notice, at least in India. The two authors, Professor Philippe Even, director of the prestigious Necker Institute, and Bernard Debré, a doctor and member of Parliament, feel that removing what they describe as superfluous and hazardous drugs from the list of those paid for by the French health service would save up to €10bn (£8bn) a year. It would also prevent up to 20,000 deaths linked to the medication and reduce hospital admissions by up to 1,00,000, they claim./.../