Big Placebo
(→Big Placebo and Big Pharma) |
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==Big Placebo and Big Pharma== | ==Big Placebo and Big Pharma== | ||
| − | [[File:Joycigarette.jpg|thumb|200px|Unsubstantiated medical claims are fun, safe, and easy to use. Just tack on "traditionally used for" ([[Tobacco smoking# | + | [[File:Joycigarette.jpg|thumb|200px|Unsubstantiated medical claims are fun, safe, and easy to use. Just tack on "traditionally used for" ([[Tobacco smoking#Medicinal use|tobacco]] certainly was) and an invisible [[Quack Miranda Warning]], and you're golden.]] |
Alternative medicine isn't quite the underdog it's usually made out to be. The revenue of the alternative and traditional medicine industry worldwide is estimated to be $60 billion a year,<ref name=medica>[http://www.themedica.com/industry-overview.html Medical Industry Overview].</ref> and the supplement industry was worth $20 billion in 2004 in the [[U.S.]] alone.<ref name=medica/> For comparison, Big Pharma is worth about $300 billion a year.<ref>[http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story073/en/ Pharmaceutical Industry], WHO.</ref> | Alternative medicine isn't quite the underdog it's usually made out to be. The revenue of the alternative and traditional medicine industry worldwide is estimated to be $60 billion a year,<ref name=medica>[http://www.themedica.com/industry-overview.html Medical Industry Overview].</ref> and the supplement industry was worth $20 billion in 2004 in the [[U.S.]] alone.<ref name=medica/> For comparison, Big Pharma is worth about $300 billion a year.<ref>[http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story073/en/ Pharmaceutical Industry], WHO.</ref> | ||
Revision as of 01:44, 4 June 2013
| Against allopathy |
| Alternative articles |
“”We hate Big Pharma. We hate big government. We don’t trust The Man. And we shouldn’t. Our health care system sucks. It’s cruel to millions of people. It’s absolutely astonishingly cold and soul-bending to those of us who can even afford it. So we run away from it, and where do we run? We leap into the arms of Big Placebo.
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| —Michael Specter[1] |
Big Placebo is a nickname given to alternative medicine companies, coined as a counterpart to the name Big Pharma, which refers to drug companies. Both names refer to the corporations' sizes and immense amounts of wealth.
The two BPs are practically identical: They are both run by selfish, greedy business executives who will do anything to make a quick buck, even if it means endangering millions of lives.
The main difference between Big Pharma and Big Placebo is that Big Pharma is regulated, to make sure its products work and contain the substances on the label, while Big Placebo is free to sell more or less whatever it wants, label be damned.
Big Placebo and Big Pharma
Alternative medicine isn't quite the underdog it's usually made out to be. The revenue of the alternative and traditional medicine industry worldwide is estimated to be $60 billion a year,[2] and the supplement industry was worth $20 billion in 2004 in the U.S. alone.[2] For comparison, Big Pharma is worth about $300 billion a year.[3]
CAM companies could improve their image dramatically by proving that their products are effective. It would also make sure that people using CAM get treatments that are better than placebos. Big Placebo clearly has enough money to test them. But they don't test them. Why? Because it would cost money. CAM companies will never prove the efficacy of their products unless they are required to by regulation, because doing so would require spending money (we can't have that, now can we?) and throwing away many profitable placebos.
The purpose of every company is to make money; everything they do is purely for that end. CAM companies are no exception. They have just as much of an incentive to make money and cut costs (by using inferior or contaminated ingredients, for instance) as Big Pharma. Big Pharma, on the other hand, is forced by government regulation to show its products are effective and generates public outrage when it does science badly.[4] Big Placebo has no reason to test its products or sell effective remedies, and actively repudiates scientific medicine as a selling point.[5] Yet, for some reason, CAM supporters trust Big Placebo and their claims completely.
Take raspberry ketone and grapefruit seed extract. The former is claimed to be a natural weight loss aid. Setting aside the fact that this claim isn't based on any evidence, the fact is, raspberry ketone is usually synthesized, not extracted, because synthesizing is much cheaper; even when extracted naturally, raspberry ketone never comes from raspberries.[6] The name "raspberry" ketone is intentionally deceptive. Grapefruit seed extract is sold as an antiseptic. Commercial GFSE is effective not because of the extract itself (which is not an antimicrobial),[7] but because of synthetic additives usually found in GFSE products.[8][9] Now, the fact that these products aren't actually natural doesn't make much (if any) difference; synthetic and natural raspberry ketone are chemically indistinguishable.[6] But the point is that thanks to the lack of regulation, Big Placebo can continue actively deceiving its customers. For many (if not most) of these alternative medicine firms, "natural is better" is just a marketing tactic used to boost sales. If they can save money by advertising synthetic products as natural, they will (the corporations are run by business executives, after all). You can never know for sure whether a given supplement is "natural" or not. Even companies who do believe natural is better have failed to tell the difference.[6]
If the dangers of tobacco had been exposed not many years ago, but in the 21st century, there would be a sizeable movement made up of CAM users (and Big Placebo, of course) to stop tobacco regulation. After all, tobacco's natural and has a long history of use in traditional medicine, so it must be good. Right?
While many, if not most, of the products that Big Placebo sells (such as homeopathic remedies) are, in fact, placebos, some herbal products, such as willow bark can have actual medicinal effects. Despite being sold as supplements, they are used and work as drugs. Dietary supplements are theoretically to be used to supplement one's diet to address deficiencies, not treat specific diseases. Is St. John's Wort sold to supply deficiency of essential nutrients? Of course not. Big Placebo has appropriated the term "supplement" to make its products seem safer. Since herbal "supplements" contain actual active ingredients, supplement companies are just unregulated drug companies selling untested drugs. As David Colquhon puts it, they constitute "an unknown dose of an ill-defined drug, of unknown effectiveness and unknown safety".[10]
Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicine supplements sold in the U.S. have been known to contain dangerous levels of substances such as lead, mercury and arsenic.[11][12] When some food product is found to be unsafe, adulterated, or contaminated,[13] there's outrage about the failure of regulation to ensure product safety. When some alternative medicine like a supplement or homeopathic remedy (you read that right)[14][15] is found to be dangerous, even lethal, there's outrage (in the CAM crowd, at least) about the unfair suppression of gentle, natural cures by a massive government conspiracy.[16] Assuming they don’t just go for science by lawsuit.[17] Are supplements safer than even food? If a drug like Vioxx or a medical device is taken off the market, that's proof that allopathy is evil and dangerous. If a supplement is taken off the market, that's proof that allopathy is evil and dangerous.
"But what about the customer's freedom to do what they want?" Nobody's saying people shouldn't be allowed to choose their own treatments. The point is not forbidding people from using their preferred treatments, but objecting to the existence of a multi-billion-dollar industry built almost entirely on selling placebos. Buying placebos may not be inherently wrong, but selling them as medicine (often as "cures" for uncurable diseases) is an entirely different matter.
Footnotes
- ↑ Michael Specter, The danger of science denial, TED Talks.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Medical Industry Overview.
- ↑ Pharmaceutical Industry, WHO.
- ↑ http://alltrials.net
- ↑ Big Placebo Says Medicine Never Cures Anything, Science-Based Medicine.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Why no Raspberry Ketones at NOW Foods?, The Herbal Insider.
- ↑ Aspects of the antimicrobial efficacy of grapefruit seed extract and its relation to preservative substances contained, von Woedtke T, Schlüter B, Pflegel P, Lindequist U, Jülich WD, Pharmazie. 1999 Jun;54(6):452-6.
- ↑ Identification of benzethonium chloride in commercial grapefruit seed extracts, Takeoka G, Dao L, Wong RY, Lundin R, Mahoney N, J Agric Food Chem. 2001 Jul;49(7):3316-20.
- ↑ Simultaneous identification and quantification by liquid chromatography of benzethonium chloride, methyl paraben and triclosan in commercial products labeled as grapefruit seed extract, Avula B, Dentali S, Khan IA, Pharmazie. 2007 Aug;62(8):593-6.
- ↑ Patients’ guide to Magic medicine, DC's Improbable Science.
- ↑ Contaminated Herbal Medicine Products, Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, archived by the Wayback Machine.
- ↑ Folk Medicine, Sources of Lead, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- ↑ Asian Honey, Banned in Europe, Is Flooding U.S. Grocery Shelves, Food Safety News.
- ↑ Hyland’s Teething Tablets may pose a risk to children, FDA.
- ↑ Recall of Hyland's Teething Tablets, Harpocrates Speaks.
- ↑ FDA Bans Hyland's Homeopathic Tablets, Gaia Health.
- ↑ http://www.brw.com.au/p/brw-lounge/swisse_patriarch_sues_diet_over_QCMdJGh0AwmHYRU2dEf5SI