A love letter to Pfizer and friends, if love is resentment and frustration.
Unanswered questions are fun places to dig mud pies in.
Hey big pharma, or more particularly, Pfizer, f** you. Yeah, that's right. F** you. You piss me off so much I fantasize about violence to your company.
(*NSA: I said fantasize, not plan.)
You make my medication. Yes, you make lots of medications. But I contend, that with many of the medications you make, their purpose is not to help your patients/customers/numbers, but to addict them. Addiction is big money in this country. And you bastards are complicit in the whole ugly process.
I drank in high school, a little. I was never very good at it. I don't like the taste of beer, and no, there isn't one single beer you'll find that I like. I like vodka, a few other things, but I've never been a good 'drinker.'
I'd get an upset stomach long before I got drunk, or the drink would be so unappetizing to me that I couldn't drink enough. So I never put much stock in to drinking.
I tried several illicit drugs in and after high school. Nothing hard. No needles, none of the new stuff. We didn't have bathtub meth or bath salts floating around then. It was your basics: weed, alcohol, maybe some cocaine, maybe some acid. None of that harder stuff was easy to find, and none of it was worth the cost, to me anyway. None of it ever really made me feel that great.
Prescription pills weren't something my peer group had much to do with, at least that I knew about, and my family's attitude was if you needed a pill, take one. In short, most of my life had been sober.
When I was diagnosed, in my 30's, with PTSD, agoraphobia, and a host of other DSM descriptors, I was prescribed an anti-anxiety medication made by the lovely folks at Pfizer. Now, this anti-anxiety medication came along with a flurry of other prescribed meds, mostly SSRIs. I hated the SSRIs and will not take them, or their new fangled cousins. That stuff is so uncomfortable, I'd rather just be jumpy all the time and quick to draw my sword or cry, or both.
But that anti-anxiety med, not an SSRI, not anything "new" on the drug market, changed a lot of things for me. Initially, I wasn't impressed. It made me sleepy, but I didn't notice much else. Then, after two or three days, the differences began to show up. I found that so long as I had my meds, the agoraphobia wasn't as bad. The PTS quieted somewhat, and I could actually laugh and look around without being on guard for short periods of time. I started to become very, very comfortable. It was a very new sensation.
So all was well in Candy land, for a bit. Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly, things changed again. Where the medication used to help quiet the thoughts I can never lose completely, the thoughts began to slowly come back to almost the level I had started at. I was in CBT, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (even though to this day when I hear "CBT" I can only, in my internet-soaked brain, think of another activity with the same acronym, yes, I have the soul of a 12 year old boy at times.) and that helped, but the medication became less effective over time.
In response, I increased my dosage when I felt particularly overwhelmed. In response, as I had already learned in Psychopharmacology 222, my brain felt that an increased dosage was the proper answer. I was very fortunate to have someone in my life whom I respect greatly say to me, "you have to stop."
And with that I began to look, really look at the medication I was taking for panic attacks, constant fear, nausea, etc. The potential side effects the manufacturer is required to list is horrifying. I found one list that had easily more than 50 different potentially bad effects from this drug. So did Pfizer make this drug to only work for a little while and then be left alone?
I don't believe they did.
I believe that Pfizer et al know exactly what happens to a number, sorry, patient, taking this drug and others they make. I believe they, much like big tobacco, actually make the drugs even more addictive than they would be on their own, in order to ensure more customers, sorry, patients.
Someone I was only slightly acquainted with had no one around to tell her that this insidious anti-anxiety medication was like a ninja in her brain, stealthily getting into every nook and cranny. No one was around to tell her she'd had enough and didn't know it. She died. Just like that. She got too comfortable and took too many.
I am in no way excusing an addict's behavior. No one poured those pills down her throat. She chose to do so. But did she really? Or was she, maybe something like me, started on them with the direction of a doctor, only to find that the medication's effect had lessened? Was she only different from me because she didn't have someone in her life who saw what was happening and stepped in and said stop?
In this country, we criminalize addiction, even as we encourage it. Look at any television station for a while, particularly networks. You'll see dozens of ads for prescription medications. Are your eyes dry? There's a prescription for that! Is your tummy upset? There's a prescription for that! So Mary Doe goes to her doctor because her shoulder hurts. Turns out Mary has some arthritis in her shoulder that is so painful her doctor prescribes her a pain medication for a short term. But, when Mary's shoulder has strengthened and healed some, the medication her doctor helpfully provided has woven its ninja stars through Mary's brain. Now, she wants that pain medication for any pain. That medication makes Mary feel good.
Mary is addicted.
In this case, and in this case only, is it Mary's fault she is addicted to the pain pills her doctor prescribed?
I maintain, loudly, that the answer is a resounding no. All doctors, PAs and anyone who can prescribe medication know that lots of medications are addictive. They know cigarettes are addictive too. To illustrate my question about Mary, let's look at two scenarios.
If I were to go in to my doctor and say I wanted help to quit smoking, he'd be thrilled to offer me pamphlets, phone numbers, gum, mints, prescription medications!! He would congratulate me, and I would feel righteous and good and just.
Conversely, if I went to that doctor and said I like pain pills quite a lot and I want to eat more of them, and could I please have more, I am very confident that within short order I would be visited by some public official. It doesn't matter which agency, criminal, civil, social, someone would immediately get involved in my personal life against my will. I would feel self-loathing, anger, fear, and powerlessness.
So who's at fault here?
Is it the doctor, for wanting to help his patient through pain?
Is it the number, sorry, patient who merely wants the pain to subside and feels better with the medication than without?
Or is it the pharmaceutical companies, who know exactly what they manufacture, what it does, and how it does it?
Is it the prison system, which makes more money than I'm willing to research by imprisoning citizens for admitting to enjoying a particular substance?
Is it the federal government, for tacitly ignoring a system that creates addicts in order to profit from addiction at best, and actively assists it at worst?
Lots of big questions. I don't have the answers, I'm sorry. But I still insist that there are other ways to deal with drugs. I have seen other countries treat drugs as a part of human nature, much like toes and teeth. I have seen countries treat drugs as tantamount to treason and reason for instant death. And then there's us. Our government lies in bed with the pharmaceutical companies while the prison system watches, fondles and waits its turn.
This sick ménage-a-trois needs to be stopped. The power Pfizer and its cohort has in this country is insane. Now I have to go, it's time for my medication.