I looked through TIME magazine yesterday and noticed the twenty page special advertising section paid for by Pharmaceutical companies selling preventive drugs for everything related to heart disease, with the goal of scaring up some prescriptions.

Capitalism has its downsides and some companies, unhappy with their profits must engage in sick practices. Insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and such walk a fine line of tasteful exploitation to generate sales and they have pretty much crossed over it.

These health crisises are good business. 'Tamiflu' sales charts are loving the bird flu scare. Before its over billions of dollars will be spread between several pharmaceutical giants and some ambitious up and comers.

This doesn't mean one throws caution to the wind but after having lived through such threats as the killer Africanized bee invasion, the West Nile Virus and other imminent health risks, I'm always looking for the profiteers who sponsor the chicken littles. And in this case the profits are bigger than ever.

10% of all US elementary school boys are on drugs for 'hyperactivity'. Drugs administered by parents and physicians even when they know the side effects damage the circulatory system and the nervous system.

It's beyond outrageous - it's an epic crisis of nationwide malpractice.

Viagra and similar drugs are sold even though these drugs will also damage the circulatory system, especially when overused.

Billions of dollars to slowly destroy folks health in the name of 'saving' or 'helping' them.

It wasn't always this way. Morality in decline has side effects in the business world. Oil companies gauging the public find their match (and worse) in the race to rush poorly tested prescription drugs for every real and perceived ailment of the human body.

Now, more than ever, caveat emptor applies to engaging health services and advice.

Trust your physician? Sure. Trust your physician to plan for his early retirement. Trust your orthodontist? Yes. Trust your orthodontist to stretch out the time your child wears braces to maximize the insurance company payments. Trust and inform yourself on health issues and the intricate functions of the human body and when engaging with health professionals realize they are in a sales related enterprise? Even better.

Then you can resist the unnecessary pharmaceutical sales pitches, protect your kids from exploitation and long term side effects and live a long and happy life.

Then again, you live in Canada so the sales pitches and offerings are likely vastly reduced. That's the one temporary benefit of socialized medicine. Give it a few more years and they will figure out how to pass the buck back to the taxpayers and join the US in prescribing you a lifelong prescription medicine to curb dandruff.

SDAI-Tech1

PS
Sorry for the digression from your main topic. You don't by any chance have a lot of shares in Roche, GlaxoSmithKline or Hemispherx do you?

;-)