Do you think there is a conspiracy to keep people sick?

[zendog78]

Simple case in point Antiretrovirals.. A never ending treatment but no cure
Antidepressants, same again.

Do you think that if one of pfizer's lab boffens came up with a compound that caused long term down or up regulation...(whatever but a prolonged effect) with a single short course or single dose and had a response rate of 95% that pfizer would put it up for approval?

It would destroy them, the drug would go off patient in 7 years and the antidepressant cash cow is dead.
So they hold back these treatments.
They keep us forever sick

Tell me why I am wrong?

[johnep]

Seemples, you suffer from a chronic condition for which there is no cure. All medicines do is to alleviate the symptoms.
johnep

[LeftArm]

and now you can take medicines to prevent diseases that you might get in the future. It's amazing the human race has survived so long.

[Defblade]

Of course there's a commercial incentive to invent a treatment rather than cure.

But I suspect there's no conspiracy, just that cures are much harder to find/effect.

The chicainery is IMO more around inventing illness ("female sexual disfunction" anyone?) and convincing medics that there is a long term benefit to be found in a given treatment.

[johnep]

Apparently, MSD became a very large company because it made products for chronic conditions eg BP.
Thus, as long as you recruited a few new pts to replace those that died, a patient could generate 20 or more years business from one initial script. With acute conditions, just a short course and then you have to find a new pt. When I was a rep, all I had to do with a chronic med was to convert a few consultants and the job was done. This is what MSD was so good at, They would also fund a nurse for a clinic eg early cholesterol patients and this was very successful. The hospital and consultants were pleased and the patients got good attention. The company got all the pts onto their medication.
johnep

[Pharmanaut]

Apparently, MSD became a very large company because it made products for chronic conditions eg BP.
Thus, as long as you recruited a few new pts to replace those that died, a patient could generate 20 or more years business from one initial script. With acute conditions, just a short course and then you have to find a new pt. When I was a rep, all I had to do with a chronic med was to convert a few consultants and the job was done. This is what MSD was so good at, They would also fund a nurse for a clinic eg early cholesterol patients and this was very successful. The hospital and consultants were pleased and the patients got good attention. The company got all the pts onto their medication.
johnep

...we tend to use our human ingenuity to treat the previously untreatable and improve on previous treatments. Though you do wonder if some diseases should be kept in check at root cause through being healthier and encouraged to be so.

[hibernia]

.
Though you do wonder if some diseases should be kept in check at root cause through being healthier and encouraged to be so.

Of course it would be better to encourage people to stay healthy but how many of us WANT to give up smoking, take more exercise, eat our five a day, etc. It is just so much easier to continue with our unhealthy habits.

[crit care]

to find a cure for something, would put you out of a job eventually! why would you want to go and do that....the companies aim is to make as much money as they can by discovering drugs to treat symptoms of diseases (as said above).

plus i would ahve thought it would be too costly and lengthy to go discovering cures, and as a result companies may not be able to recoup their money back within a generation

[culchie82]

There's a controversial Scientist and ex- medical Doctor (who's name eludes me) who contends, that not only is Medicine a very imprecise Science, it has very little Scientific basis to it at all. He maintains that modern Medical treatments often produce adverse effects, much worse than the original illness. Had particulary controversial opinions on Vaccinations. Makes one think....

[Robert]

There's a controversial Scientist and ex- medical Doctor (who's name eludes me) who contends, that not only is Medicine a very imprecise Science, it has very little Scientific basis to it at all. He maintains that modern Medical treatments often produce adverse effects, much worse than the original illness. Had particulary controversial opinions on Vaccinations. Makes one think....

Of course, one can always find some scientist who maintains ..... <enter favorite conspiracy>. The real question is if the things this person maintains has any merit. For example the blanket statement that modern pharmaceuticals produce side effects worse than the to be treated disease seems rather...dramatic.