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Joined: 02 May 2007 Posts: 23 Location: Eastern Ontario
Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2007 3:58 pm Post subject: Painkiller prescriptions rise by 90% in US in past 7 years
For some reason doctors are prescribing a shit load more narcotics prescriptions in the US than they did a decade ago.
Yesterday an Associated Press analysis of data provided by the US Drug Enforcement Administration showed major increases in the prescribing of the 5 major painkillers - odeine, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and meperidine.
An AP investigation found these reasons for the increase:
—The population is getting older. As age increases, so does the need for pain medications. In 2000, there were 35 million people older than 65. By 2020, the Census Bureau estimates the number of elderly in the U.S. will reach 54 million.
—Drug makers have embarked on unprecedented marketing campaigns. Spending on drug marketing has gone from $11 billion in 1997 to nearly $30 billion in 2005, congressional investigators found. Profit margins among the leading companies routinely have been three and four times higher than in other Fortune 500 industries.
—A major change in pain management philosophy is now in its third decade. Doctors who once advised patients that pain is part of the healing process began reversing course in the early 1980s; most now see pain management as an important ingredient in overcoming illness.
Ironically, stimulant prescribing - particularly for the so-called Attential Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - have risen at equally rapid rates during the same time period.
Direct-to-parent marketing of ADHD drugs -- most of which are stimulants -- has grown pervasive over the last few years, despite a United Nations treaty banning most of it. Use of such medications increased by more than 60% from 2001 to 2005, according to the International Narcotics Control Board.
...
Children in the U.S. are 10 times more likely to take a stimulant medication for ADHD than are kids in Europe. In fairness, children in Europe are also somewhat less likely to be diagnosed with ADHD because of a stricter set of criteria. But that doesn't nearly account for the difference in prescription rates. The U.S., the only nation to violate the U.N. treaty, consumes about 85% of the stimulants manufactured for ADHD.
...
Drug companies would argue that increased production and use of ADHD drugs are the result of better diagnosis and treatment. But the International Narcotics Control Board holds advertising responsible. In a report earlier this year, the board noted that from 2001 -- when the ads first appeared -- to 2005, medical consumption of methylphenidate increased by 64%.
"That large increase was mainly a result of developments in the United States, where the substance is advertised in the media, directly to potential customers," according to the report.
So the middle and upper classes are being prescribed stimulant and opiod narcotics at ever increasing rates whereas the poor and underclass are being locked up for their use of street stimulants and opiods in the form of crack and heroin? That's real classy, eh? _________________
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