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Hernando Today

Risking Children's Health To Big Pharma

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By DOMENICK J. MAGLIO, Neo Traditionalist

Hernando Today

Published: August 15, 2008

Doctors are under immense pressure to dispense the latest hyped drug to keep abreast of rapidly advancing chemical technology. Being a doctor has changed from preventing and treating a problem with the least invasive procedures to quickly finding the solution with minimal involvement and effort on the part of the patient and doctor.
The pharmaceutical industry has inundated the television airwaves with outrageous claims about drug after drug to brainwash the public that these drugs can solve any problem known to man. Their highly motivated reps are trained to schmooze assigned doctors with dinners and other perks. The army of agents invades doctor's offices almost hourly handing out specimen miracle drugs. These free drugs are for doctors to use to experiment on patient symptoms.
The pharmaceutical industry has revised the Hippocratic oath of "first do no harm." The modern version is "disregard the health risks, just sell drugs."
The American Academy of Pediatrics is supposed to advise pediatricians of the best way to protect patients based on scientific knowledge. This is no longer the case. The pharmaceutical industry has bought off the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) through contributions:
$440,000 from Merck.
$835,250 from Abbott Laboratories.
$216,000 from the Bristol-Meyers Squibb.
Several members of the AAP have ties to drug makers:
Dr. Stephen Daniels consulted for Merck.
Dr. Nicholas Stettler worked on clinical trials for Merck.
Dr. Jatinder Bhatia, has a financial relationship with Bristol-Myers Squibb.
This relationship between Big Pharma and the AAP appears to be cynical, but it is beginning to be difficult to deny. The latest recommendation from the AAP is to prescribe cholesterol medication to high risk children as young as 8 years old and to some even higher risk children as young as 2. The prescribing of these drugs is further complicated by the extreme immaturity of these young bodies.
The cure should not be worse than the potential disease. The rotten secret of the statin drugs is that they never have been tested on children. Big Pharma has the gall to extrapolate test results done on older patients to unscientifically justify using them on children. It is playing "Russian roulette" with youngster. No one knows the long-term effects on children but still the drugs have been recommended to frightened and uninformed parents. These parents do not want their children to suffer from heart disease. They are willing to overlook the known side effects of these drugs such as muscle pain, fatigue and cognitive function, which are probably the tip of the iceberg for the more vulnerable bodies of children.
This approval of dispensing statins to children is more disturbing due to the mounting irrefutable evidence that childhood obesity has increased with the lack of exercise and wholesome diet. According to a recent study, two-thirds of all teens do not get the minimum vigorous exercise that is recommended by the government. Video games, Internet surfing and abandonment of physical education in our schools have resulted in this epidemic of obesity in our youth. The traditional medical approach is to start with the least invasive treatment like exercise and diet before plunging into powerful pharmaceuticals.
There is an inherent conflict of interest with today's American Academy of Pediatrics and the pharmaceutical industry. The AAP should return the contributions from the drug companies and prohibit their board members from working for those drug companies for whose products they are supposed to make unbiased judgments.
The AAP can regain its integrity as a governing agency of pediatricians by encouraging their members to spend more time with young patients evaluating their lifestyles and educating them and their parents on ways to live healthier.
They should recommend concrete and comprehensive ways of being better balanced in life before any consideration is given to a chemical onslaught of their youthful bodies. Only after this approach has shown no results and there is an immediate and serious risk to the child's life, then and only then should the more aggressive drug therapy be employed.
Regardless of the objectives of pharmaceutical companies, no governing agency of medical professionals should jeopardize the health and lives of children to increase drug companies' profit margins.

Dr. Domenick J. Maglio, Ph. D., is the author of "Invasion Within" and "Essential Parenting." He is a psychotherapist and the owner/director of Wider Horizons School. Visit: www.drmaglio.com.

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