Selling Sickness

There’s a new book, “Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients.” It explains a lot.

In other words, no, it’s not your imagination. Everyone you know really is obsessed with their weight, their cholesterol, bone density, bodyfat content, am I too shy / too pushy / not popular enough, am I suffering from the disease-of-the-week — you name it. Coincidence?

The pharmaceutical companies planted this seed a long time ago, and it’s blooming right on schedule. The billions they spend on advertising has paid for itself many times over. We’ve all seen the TV ads. Shy? Tense? Depressed? Take Xaxidrenophene. Warning: may cause heart attack, kidney failure, ulcers, psychotic reactions, suicide, cancer, genital disintegration. Ask your doctor if Xaxidrenophene is right for you.

And it’s worked like a clock. God, American consumers are easy! Yes, the drug companies are scumbags (and a whole slew of unprintable names) for marketing sickness; for selling crutches and trying to convince everyone that they have a broken leg.

But we live in one of the freest societies in the world. (We have a Hitler wannabe in the White House, but the American people will triumph. Believe it.) And yet, American consumers have to be the most gullible, manipulatable, nose-ring-operated people in the world. Their brand of toothpaste, political candidate and psychoactive drug are all being pushed and pulled every which way by: Advertising.

Countless industries are thanking their gods for this; so is Karl Rove (and the other political manipulators who preceded him); and so are the pharmaceutical companies.

It’s easy to point the finger at the pharmaceutical industry, but the only way to reduce their power and influence is for people to start thinking for themselves. Don’t be so F#@%$&! gullible.
A sense of personal responsibility and autonomy is tied in with all this. We’ve all known people who, ten or fifteen years ago, would have been called an asshole, a douchebag, a bully, a mooch — you get the idea. Now it seems no matter how big a #@$%&!# somebody is, there’s a clinical name for this person’s “psychological” disorder. In “Designing Women” — toward the end of the series — one of their characters always talked about being diagnosed with OPD (Obnoxious Personality Disorder).

And this is what we’ve become. It’s someone else’s fault. I’m not incompetent / a bully / a leech — I suffer from Psychodysfunctionalarchetype Syndrome. And because of this mindset, too many of us get pulled into every sales pitch, whether it’s for a political candidate, a fad diet or the newest drug that’s good for what ails you.

We can reduce the un-Godly influence of the pharmaceutical industry just by showing more independence and thinking for ourselves.