Video Clip: Big Bucks, Big Pharma Documentary

[Donnachaidh]

Run time: 04:52 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81DmeC_EXKI   Posted on YouTube: June 09, 2006 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: September 28, 2007 By DU Member: Donnachaidh Views on DU: 543

 
Newly released by the Media Education Foundation, "Big Bucks, Big Pharma" pulls back the curtain on the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry to expose the insidious ways that illness is used, manipulated, and in some instances created, for capital gain. Focusing on the industry's marketing practices, media scholars and health professionals help viewers understand the ways in which direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising glamorizes and normalizes the use of prescription medication, and works in tandem with promotion to doctors. Combined, these industry practices shape how both patients and doctors understand and relate to disease and treatment. Ultimately, Big Bucks, Big Pharma challenges us to ask important questions about the consequences of relying on a for-profit industry for our health and well-being.

Featuring interviews with Dr. Marcia Angell (Dept. of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Former Editor New England Journal of Medicine), Dr. Bob Goodman (Columbia University Medical Center; Founder, No Free Lunch), Gene Carbona (Former Pharmaceutical Industry Insider and Current Executive Director of Sales, The Medical Letter), Katharine Greider (Journalist; Author, The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers,), Dr. Elizabeth Preston (Dept. of Communication, Westfield State College), and Dr. Larry Sasich (Public Citizen Health Research Group).

[OneBlueSky]

1. one of the reasons (among many) that I can't support Hillary is . . .

her ties to to big (read: gargantuan) heathcare and pharmaceutical industries . . .

if she's elected, the government will NEVER be able to negotiate drug prices on behalf of Medicare patients . . .

and we'll NEVER have a truly universal healthcare system that puts HMOs and insurance companies out of business -- if you can call siphoning off hundreds of billions (if not trillions) of healthcare dollars for things like advertising (and denying legitimate claims to increase profits) an industry . . . more like a racket from where I sit . . .

[Donnachaidh]

2. People should REALLY try to watch this film!

YouTube has most (if not all of it) in sections. It points out how Big Pharma *re-packages* old drugs for *new* disorders -- case in point, PMDD, which is nothing more than regular PMS. And Prozac, which was now generic, was put in a new package, given a different, more *feminine* name -- and bingo! PMDD drug!

It also goes into detail about the continual *bribing* of doctors, from med school and beyond, under the false name of *educational dinners*, the phony *health reports* put out by our wonderful media as *valid concerns*, but are actually nothing more than disease-mongering.

PLEASE watch the sections on youtube.