Rise of the medical-industrial complex

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Modern medicine has increased the human lifespan, eliminated many contagious diseases, and produced the technology to save many millions of lives. The possibilities for improved health are endless, it seems.

However, under capitalism, medicine has become a giant industry. As such, it is governed by an overriding concern with profit. This has led to a huge confidence gap between doctor and patient.

Time magazine featured the problem in an article last July entitled, "Doctors and Patients, Image versus Reality." The article pointed out that public confidence in the medical profession has never been lower.

With the rise of the medical-industrial complex, instead of seeing a doctor in a private office, most encounters are within a vast corporate hierarchy which is marketing medicine. Last year, hospitals spent more than $1.3 billion on marketing and advertising in order to sustain support from government and private funds.

A problem with modern medical training and delivery is that it never has been concerned with the causes and prevention of disease but has been obsessed with profits. This is one reason why the escalating epidemic of environmental illness remains unacknowledged.

More important is the fact that industry has spent billions on indrugs provided by a rich and powerful drug industry, many of which are inadequately tested and dangerous.

Brave New World

Like its counterpart in pesticides, this massive worldwide industry has emerged almost entirely since World War II. In the 1930s, there were hardly more than three widely used synthetic drugs on the market. Now there are 25,000. Two billion prescriptions were written in the United States in the mid-1970s, a 50 percent increase in 10 years.

A survey in Britain revealed that one-half the adult population and over one-third of its children were taking some kind of medication every day. A good third of the medications were for the treatment of emotional or nervous conditions.

Instead of campaigning to remove the causes of modern stress and anxiety, the medical profession is creating a Brave New World where a good section of the population is heavily sedated or addicted either legally or illegally.

As the external environment becomes increasingly polluted, our inner biochemistry is becoming disrupted as well. Drugs are creating a battery of new diseases such as aplastic anaemia, a potentially fatal disease of the bone marrow that is caused by a leading antibiotic.

The thalidomide used between 1956 and 1961 had been tested as rigorously as most drugs released on the market, yet this did not prevent the tragedy it produced for thousands of mothers who gave birth to horribly deformed babies. Since that time two other drugs, Bendectin and Debendox, have been known to cause birth defects.

The patient population has unwittingly become human guinea pigs for the modern drug industry. Most at risk are females, who make the majority of doctor visits, and the elderly, who often take lethal combinations of drugs by mistake.

As in the cases of asbestos contamination, giant drug firms like CibaGeigy and Lilly have been caught concealing important information from the public about their products. International drug firms often test out their products in underdeveloped countries before moving them into the market of the advanced capitalist countries. In some instances (like the case of the contraceptive Depo-Provera) they have even sold them in Europe after knowing they caused serious side effects.

Drugs have served as a mixed blessing for modern humanity. There is no need to dispense with the development and use of drugs. What is needed is to remove the profit motive from the production and marketing of them. The same is true of modern medical technology.

There has never existed a more crying need for the institution of socialized medicine than now!—L.T.

EARTH DAY VIA 20th Anniversary Rally For more info, (202) 547-1990

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April 21, 1990 Mall, RFK Stadium Washington, D.C.