CAPITALISM IN MEDICINE

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (8/5/09)


We socialize services that should be available to everyone. We pay taxes for governments to administer our roads and highways. We've do the same with the Postal Service. Most water systems are owned by some government or agency. With Arizona the sorry exception, many cities and counties own the power systems. If they're owned by corporations, they're closely supervised by the government.

If every citizen merits health care, it should be socialized. It's really a no-brainer unless it's desirable to have the greed inherent in capitalism corrupt our health care as it has done over the years. Physicians' offices, resembling automobile repair garages plastered with Pennzoil, Napa, and Castrol signs, use memo pads advertising drug companies and signs suggesting specific drugs, such as, Lipitor. While the physicians may look like hucksters, the real issue is a corruption both pervasive and malignant.

Ghostwriters employed by drug companies, such as Wyeth, wrote scientific papers in medical journals backing the use of hormone replacement therapy from 1998 to 2005. In 2002 researchers found that menopausal women who took these drugs had increased risk of breast cancer, heart disease, and stroke. A later study found that older women using these drugs were at an increased risk for dementia. These hired gun articles appeared in The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the International Journal of Cardiology.

The capitalists of Wall Street, drug companies, and insurance companies brought us our inefficient health care system. Let's get them out of medicine for our own well-being.