Below is a small excerpt from the book “What on Earth ore we ding to our Health?”
Our goal in this chapter is not to dwell on conspiracy theories, but to simply present our opinion on why most people have never heard of it. We asked ourselves this same question and based on our research, these are the key factors we believe are the major drivers. While no way a comprehensive list, it provides a framework for you to make your own conclusions.
News, Big Pharma and Direct to Consumer Advertising (DTC), physician training and incentives, “standard of care”, FDA funding, clinical studies, and case studies from the practitioners that use frequency therapy.
Most Americans are aware that Big Pharma and the media are in bed together. The evening news is virtually only drug commercials. Fancy drug names with horrific side effects. All packaged and delivered with soft music and images of grandchildren. If you are the media and the drug companies are your main source of revenue, then they are your customer.
They are your boss. This must drive what the media does and does not report. Instinctively, you know this is true. It is usually a bad idea to bite the hand that feeds. How does your day usually go when you aggressively disagree with your manager?
The United States and New Zealand are the only two countries in the world that allow TV ads for drugs or “Direct to Consumer” marketing. Historically, Big Pharma could not advertise prescription medicines on radio or TV. When they tested over-the-counter remedies like aspirin, they would see a spike in sales. This made them smile. Both Big Pharma and the media both liked the results but disliked having their hands tied by government rules, it was bad for business on both teams. They wanted to expand TV marketing to prescription drugs as well.
An enormous amount of lobbying pressure and money was spent to release those handcuffs. In the late 1990s and 2000s, Big Pharma and the media finally broke the government down. You now see drug commercials for ailments you never even knew existed. The logic is the drug companies can market to small niche groups and still be profitable because the price of the drugs is so ridiculously high they still produce huge margins.
The drug companies claim they need to charge these high margins to cover the cost of R&D. However, the spend on DTC marketing is twice that of the R&D, roughly $30 billion a year in research vs. $60 billion in marketing. Standard Media Index (34) says Pharma advertising increased 41 percent from 2014 to 2015—the largest increase of any category of advertising.
Once upon a time, there lived a small shepherd boy. His brothers were attending a business meeting one day and he thought it would be a nice gesture to take them some lunch. At the meeting, there was a 9-foot tall bully, who everyone feared, except the scrawny shepherd boy. His religion gave him courage, so he took his sling shot and hurled a stone at the giant, trying to kill him.
In fables like this, the little guy wins, but in the real world, this is seldom the case.
