I was in Rome once, vacationing and reveling in the wonderful lifestyle Italy offers. I was also battling the remnants of a persistent cough (shared by many of my fellow New Englanders) born of a spring cold exacerbated by a higher-than-usual pollen count during some unseasonably hot days and excessive mold spores following heavy spring rains.
Discouraged at the amount of energy my cough was consuming, I visited a pharmacy in Rome and sought the pharmacist’s advice. He asked me what I had already taken and noted the medications I was normally prescribed, then suggested an over-the-counter item which I optimistically took that afternoon and for the next few days.
Within three days my cough was subsiding: in a few more days it was gone. I even managed to fly home in the plane’s dry air without hacking.
I called my local pharmacist on my return and brought in the package of the Italian cough remedy. It seems it is a simple formula that could easily be replicated here in the U.S.A. and even be sold without prescription. But it isn’t, and the tragedy is it probably never will be.
This is not my first such experience with effective European pharmaceutical products that really work and don’t cost a mortgage payment to buy. My frequent visits there and my fortunate language skills makes me less hesitant than others might be to give Europe’s remedies a try. I have never been disappointed.
My experiences do make me wonder, however, why Congress doesn’t deal with the overbearing pharmaceutical lobby that holds Americans hostage to outrageous drug prices by allowing more European competitors into our market? If a drug hasn’t killed or harmed all the Swiss, French or Italians over the last decade it’s probably safe enough for Americans as well. Our own FDA certainly does not have a flawless safety record when it comes to approving U.S. drugs for American consumption. Why not bring in what’s tried and true in Berlin, Madrid, or London?
Despite the American myth that we live in “the greatest country on earth,” our bodies function in the same ways as the bodies of our European neighbors. If a pill doesn’t do damage to the European Union’s gastrointestinal tract or respiratory system, it won’t hurt the stomach or lungs of a guy in Dayton, Ohio either. Besides, the federal government has depended on bringing in foreign flu vaccines, bird flu preventatives, and even West Nile remedies when the U.S. could not or would not develop enough on its own. I suppose they cannot have it both ways, eschewing foreign drugs when it interferes with U.S. drug company profits (and therefore campaign contributions) and, on the other hand, buying such drugs to avoid U.S. government embarrassment and public health crises.
My guess is that reasonable Americans agree it is time to get serious about lowering prescription and non-prescription drug costs in the United States. Opening our pharmacies to legitimate European drugs with excellent safety records might be a good beginning.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
escrito por nada
Wren Dancer
FusunA
Leepin Larry
Out on a limb
Miguela Holt y Roybal
Salon.com
Comments
R
Scientific method does not require a double blind, placebo controlled trial. Those are the ones all the drug companies use (and then fail to disclose negative data) to "prove" their drugs are superior. One cannot compare a plant and a drug, as they are chemically two different things. What many naturalist doctors have known for years continues to be evident, because they used the same criteria that we have all had since the beginning of time, and then refined their understanding as new methods of observation were created. "proving" something does not disprove something else, it only refutes or supports a theory that something is causative and not just correlated. There is not a lot of substantiated proof that statins, for instance, prevent heart attacks. There is a lot of proof that a healthy diet and exercise reduces incidence of many health issues, including coronary events in those prone to them. Those are two very different attiudes. One of them works most of the time, one of them costs people a lot of money, causes other problems and does not require that people actually change their behavior. Genetics (vulnerability) require an environment to operate in. Behavior is that environment.
The reason we don't invest in more of those remedies is because we don't have socialized medicine. Our medical system is based on a for profit, capitalist model- even if social medicine tags along for the leftover benefits of industrial medicine. The money used to make those studies is not there, because there is no end profit with a patentable product and exclusive right to production. One cannot patent oregano, for instance, but one could patent a derivative of oregano oils that is associated with an antiviral effect. Changing that compound into a "drug" makes it a product.
The best part of "natural" medicine being left out of the insurance and medicare game is the less regulation. While that may seem like it is dangerous, it surely isn't as dangerous as the reality that the leading cause of death is hospital, doctor and pharmaceutical errors. It means that a patient has more choice to act on their own healthcare, instead of being subjugated to the industry standards that have a lot to do with the cheapest way to manage illness. It will cost money, of course, everything does. It also means that patients may need to understand that they can't do whatever they want in life and expect to live long, healthy and active lives. And it may mean that we all have to understand that there isn't always a drug or a surgery to fix everything.