Influenza A (H1N1,) now officially defined as New Influenza - after briefly being called Swine Flu before the pork industry intervened to save its bacon - by last week had been found in 53 countries where 15,510 cases had been laboratory confirmed, with 99 deaths. The common flu we’ve become accustomed to kept millions of people at home, for a few days in bed, but many thousands more worldwide died from its complications. The New Flu is a “light” variation requiring a little bed rest and no special medicines are needed for most cases to be cured, while the death threat is limited to a smaller number of individuals suffering from chronic respiratory ailments and other diseases. Still, governments are worried and taking special protection measures because no vaccine has been produced, and there is a threat that if a widespread pandemic breaks out, workers will stay home for a few days, hospitals will be overloaded with patients affected by other diseases aggravated by the New Flu and there will be a serious danger the virus will transmute and put the world at risk. The reality is that if one gets the New Influenza, a few days of home isolation and over-the-counter drugs take care of it and in a few months a vaccine will be produced and the threat will end.
But panic and mob hysteria have been pushed by doctors who want their 15 minutes of fame on TV and somebody’s making big money out of this medical terror. Two medicines have been recommended to combat New Influenza, Tamiflu and Relenza. They are designed to prevent the virus from spreading among cells in the body and provide a rapid cure. Tamiflu is produced by Hoffmann-La Roche (Roche) from Switzerland, while Relenza is produced by GlaxoSmithKline from the United Kingdom, two of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Governments have made huge procurements to cover large needs in case of a pandemic and many people have stockpiled products that most likely won’t be needed and will soon expire. The responsibility for this irrational behaviour lies with ignorant heath decision-makers in national governments, and with doctors who irresponsibly disseminate fear and terror while paying a real service to pharmaceutical companies and profit-pushing drug merchants.
This is an opportunity to scrutinise the relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies, who often subsidise the medical industry, paying for junkets and favourable opinions disguised as research. In most countries, advertising medicines is not permitted except in special cases because of laws passed after intense lobbying from giant pharmaceutical companies who want the public to remain ignorant about drugs, especially new products introduced by small companies who then could not compete with the conglomerates that are part of the Medical-Pharmaceutical Complex. That keeps good and cheaper drugs out of the marketplace because doctors have the absolute power of prescribing, the link the superpower drug companies want most, even if fostered panic profits only them.
There is an intrinsic relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies. Every company has a big marketing budget to invite doctors to international medical conferences. The pretext is that a non-profit organisation, sometimes run by volunteers who work for the drug companies, organises a high-level “scientific” conference in an exotic place so the participants can be in a proper environment that will stimulate them to “assimilate” the “scientific” presentations. You’ll find most of them by the pool with a pina colada, watching the bikini parade of the obligatory bevy of young beauties around for eye candy, or off on excursions.
This “science” is done in places like Hawaii, Fiji, Capri, Majorca, Aspen and other places where very few of the doctors invited could go if they had to pay. Drug companies often let them bring a “guest” while all expenses – airline tickets, transportation, five-star hotels, food and mini-bar are included, sometimes including gifts such as luxurious watches, brand name clothes, leather goods and all the best money can buy, which is the real intention, to get a good word from the doctors about their drugs. The pharmaceutical business is huge and well-segmented in micro-worlds. In most cities, the big drug companies, through merchants and a circuit of representatives, have agents who visit doctors and promote the drugs they manufacture. The agents have a tight relationship (small gifts and discounts) and follow who prescribed what so they have a pretty good picture who helps them peddle their drugs and where. Pharmaceutical companies reward the fidelity of their House Doctors by inviting them to cushy events where the fringe benefits and amenities always depend on the doctor prescribing their own medicine.
A case for OLAF
This common practice is a flagrant bribe which increases the price of consumer goods to the end user and obstructs free competition, keeping other products out of the market because smaller companies cannot advertise and don’t have the built-in pipeline network of doctors to promote their products. These bribes, if monetised, show a huge loss of untaxed revenue. Companies declare them expenses to promote “scientific knowledge.” Doctors don’t declare them because they’re not getting cash. If – and I say if - the European Union approved a Regulation these expenditures by pharmaceutical companies were not tax-exempt, and doctors were taxed on the value of the benefits they received free, tax revenues would rise and doctors would look at a wider range of drugs before writing out a prescription, while free competition in a strongly self-regulated market would be improved. This is a subject that OLAF, the alleged anti-fraud Service of the European Union, would find more interesting than the usual penny ante bribery charges that usually come over its transom.
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