Years of working in the field of alcohol and drug detox and rehabilitation has taught me many valuable lessons about people, and about the addictive substances to which they sadly, and so often disastrously, fall prey.
But it has revealed another situation, a darker problem more serious even than individual addiction because it strikes at and threatens the beating heart of our society.
This problem, which like most problems began as a solution, has created an entirely new culture in the world, a broad social order touching all of us that looks not for real solutions to the difficulties of modern life, but rather for a quick and simple escape. This new culture that has been thrust on and widely accepted by the world is the culture of pharmaceuticals as the solution to all ills, mental, physical and even spiritual.
While many people might just shrug and ignore the situation, we in the drug detox and drug rehab arena can’t turn our backs on it. The situation has become so perilous that for the foreseeable future the Novus Medical Detox blog space will be dedicated to investigating, reporting and commenting on it.
The reasons for this seem clear beyond any argument. The good that so many pharmaceuticals do colors how we think of them, how we use them, and how we abuse them. It is also clear that the investor-driven rush for profit has led to woefully inadequate testing and approvals of many new drugs, largely contributing to thousands of unnecessary injuries and deaths, and billions of dollars in legal settlements at a time when Big Pharma can ill afford such problems.
Recently we have read about Big Pharma’s admissions of altered or withheld test results, and profiteering at the expense of its patients and customers. And unethical promotion of risky off-label uses for the sake of profit have also raised the grim statistics of injury and death by drugs.
No one is suggesting that Big Pharma shouldn’t make a profit. Without profit there could be no research, no new developments, no progress at all. Instead, we seek to find what can and should be done about the shortcomings in pharmaceutical testing and approvals, to help remove the dangers of unproven drugs from society, without placing impossible financial burdens on Big Pharma.
Starting today, this blog will center on the complicity of Big Pharma, the Food and Drug Administration, state and federal lawmakers and of course the over-arching influences of Wall Street and an ad-hungry, uncritical media in the indiscriminate and dangerous drugging of society. We will examine the profitable to some but costly to society results of blind acceptance of pharmaceuticals as a panacea, and the dwindling spiral into widespread chemical dependence, addiction and death that has accompanied it. We will also look at the possibility that improved testing and approval processes, although more costly at first, might actually be the solution everyone is looking for.
From time to time we might also suggest, when it’s reasonable and has some scientific merit or historical precedent, how people might turn to simple, more natural solutions than poorly tested and potentially risky pharmaceuticals. In the dim past, there dwelt a sense of awe at the discovery of nature’s power to heal. A glance at history shows how leaves, roots, barks and herbs led to a compelling desire to harness nature’s power to help one’s fellows find healthier, more comfortable lives. This is the actual history of Big Pharma. And we hope that the readers of this blog will participate with us in that original spirit of discovery, and share our commitment to help in whatever way we can to bring about the well-being of mankind.