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More Advertising – More Drugs

An article on MSNBC suggests that Americans are taking more prescription drugs thanks in part to massive advertising introduced by the drug industry. According to the article, Americans who visited a medical doctors office in 1999 were far more likely to receive more than one drug then Americans were back in 1985.

Increased use was up amongst nearly all prescription medications, with the exception of antibiotics which have received so much attention during the past few years as a result of massive over prescribing and increased antibiotic resistance.

Some researchers believe that the power of advertising has led to the use of more drugs in today’s society. The promotion of drugs directly to the public has most definitely increased and according to one doctor, “the ones that are heavily marketed are, in fact, heavily prescribed.”

A medical doctor suggested that people are taking more medications today because they have more chronic conditions and that modern medical science has made huge amounts of progress.

A spokesman for pharmaceutical manufacturers suggested that the rise prescription drug use is good news because science now has more medicines to treat more diseases.

Questions
Would huge advances in health care result in consumers taking more medications for chronic conditions or less medications because they no longer have those conditions?

If more medicines are being prescribed, should there be more diseases?
What happened after years of increased antibiotic use?

MSNBC: Sharp rise in multiple prescriptions

planetc1.com-news @ 8:50 am | Article ID: 996076223

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