The State of Health Today
The film recognizes the advancements made by modern medicine, such as the discovery of penicillin. It features several doctors with a range of specialties. According to Dr. Suneel Dhand, a physician of internal medicine, there was a dramatic increase in life expectancy in the early part of the last century. Although the life expectancy was not entirely due to new medications, the use of antibiotics and other interventions and acute care options are no doubt life-saving. Yet despite advances in medicine, people are not getting healthier.This is seen with the rise of chronic diseases. A chronic disease is defined as symptoms lasting over a year and requiring ongoing medical treatment. As of 2023, the CDC estimates that 60 percent of adults in the United States have at least one chronic disease, and more than 40 percent have two or more chronic diseases. This has been increasing rapidly since 2012 when the number of adults with a chronic disease was only 25 percent.
It has been suggested that the reason more people are suffering from chronic disease now is due to longer life expectancy. However, this is disproved by the fact that increasing numbers of young people have a chronic disease, with 18-34-year-olds now having the same prevalence of chronic disease as the general adult population. In 2019, 54 percent of 18-34-year-olds in the United States had at least one chronic condition, and 22 percent had more than one condition.
The Scientific Revolution
In 1910, Abraham Flexner published a report about the status of medical education in North America. The report led to all forms of natural medicine being eliminated from medical schools and paved the way for the pharmaceutical industry to dominate Western medicine. The report was a milestone in forming the industrial medical complex, but as far back as the 1700s, thinkers such as Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes abandoned Aristotles’ holistic philosophy. Instead, they started a scientific revolution for a new line of thinking, believing that only what could be measured in a specific way was valid.The Industrial Revolution, about a century later, required machines and the creation of the factory system. All of this was made possible by the application of the scientific method. Modern medicine was born at a time when society was embracing industrial capitalism. They wanted to apply what they had learned in industry to health care.
One Flawed Report Shaped the Landscape of Medicine
The EpochTV film takes viewers to a circle of men called “the Hopkins group.” These individuals were connected to Johns Hopkins University and the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations. They recruited Abraham Flexner to the group, although he was not a medical expert but an educator. According to the documentary, they believed this would aid in the report’s acceptance as educators were viewed in higher esteem than doctors. His task was to visit the medical schools in North America and publish a report on the teaching methods being used. Rather than approach the task with an open mind, he set out with a host of preconceived notions and biases.Profit Over Patients
But the problems didn’t stop with the report. The tycoons of the day realized the potential for money to be made in the medical industry and pharmaceutical products. Many of these products were byproducts of the petrochemical industry at the time. They wanted to sway doctors towards using these products instead of Native American methods and alternative solutions that were still widely practiced. The result, the film argues, was the birth of a medical industry, not a health industry.Some argue that moving doctors towards the role of a scientist rather than a healer has led to a lasting effect on how doctors relate to their patients and the loss of the soul of medicine. Treating patients with protocol rather than the individual needs of patients suits the pharmaceutical industry, with pill pushing and prescriptions. This robotic-like treatment approach is pitted against those who want to save the art of healing and serving the patient.
Pharmaceutical Corruption
The film shows how the pharmaceutical industry has become more involved in medicine and expanded significantly in recent decades. In 2001, the global pharmaceutical industry was valued at $390 billion. In 2021, it had grown to $1.45 trillion. The pharmaceutical industry is nearly four times bigger now than 20 years ago, with profit margins significantly greater than S&P 500 companies.The film shows how much of this increase has been gained through nefarious activities, such as fraud, failure to report drug safety data, unlawful prescriptions, bribery, and kickbacks to physicians who prescribe them. These examples are well documented by lawsuits and payouts. One example is a case in 2012 where GlaxoSmithKline, a pharmaceutical company, was ordered to pay $300 billion to resolve allegations of fraud and failure to report drug safety data. According to the Department of Justice, from 1998 to 2003, the company unlawfully promoted the drug Paxil for treating depression in those under the age of 18. However, the FDA never approved Paxil for pediatric use. In 2001, GlaxoSmithKline published a misleading medical journal article in the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry that stated in its conclusion that the drug was “generally well tolerated and effective for major depression in adolescents,” even though the data showed the drug was ineffective and did more harm than good. This was not a lone incident, with the company using the same tactics with several other medicines and providing kickbacks to doctors.
The $300 billion fine GlaxoSmithKline had to pay may sound substantial, but the fine proved minuscule compared to the total revenue for those drugs during the period in question. The pharmaceutical company profited at least $28 billion from the drug, making the fine only one-tenth of the money made. The film begs the question, could the slight slap on the wrist be considered an acceptable cost of doing business by pharmaceutical companies?
Furthermore, the misleading article was never corrected and is still available to this day, with its incorrect conclusions. No apologies or retractions have ever been issued. In 2013, a team of researchers reanalyzed the data from the trial and found the situation was worse than initially thought. The drug was found to be no better than a placebo while also having 2.6 times the number of severe adverse effects and causing 11 times more suicide attempts than the placebo. The researchers also found a failure to follow trial protocol and misreporting of the adverse effects.
Medical Censorship
Unlike the goal of the Flexner Report, which was to consolidate methods of medical practice, the film argues that science flourishes with free discourse, diverse discussion, and disagreement. However, it claims that recent years have worked to silence alternative views and dissent among doctors and scientists. The documentary presents a compelling case for why scientific discussions should be aired publicly, in print, and for others to see and learn. However, the physicians interviewed say it is frightening how little discourse is even allowed in their industry. The film’s message is that all medicine has its place, and by working together, patients can receive the treatments needed to provide true healing.
