Be wary of pharmaceuticals

There’s a place for pharmaceuticals in any health care system.  I recently had a battle with an incredible stomach flu that had me writhing on the floor with fever, headache, and body aches like you wouldn’t believe.  A tablet of Tylenol every few hours kept me comfortable enough to get some rest so that I had the energy to fend off the virus.

But when it comes to things like long term pain relief, you might want to consider just how hard these drugs are being pushed onto the public by the pharmaceutical companies and consider what kind of effect multimillion dollar marketing budgets can have — especially in the hands of companies that don’t mind bending the rules or the truth to extract extra profit from their inventions.

In a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, Pfizer pled guilty to a criminal charge and agreed to pay the fine for illegally promoting four drugs—Bextra, an anti-inflammatory drug; Geodon, an antipsychotic; Zyvox, an antibiotic; and Lyrica, an anti-seizure medication—for uses that had not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Lyrica, by the way, is the one you see advertised on TV all the time to help you with fibromyalgia.

For more: Pfizer settlement: Be wary of off-label drug use: Consumer Reports Health Blog.