Pharmaceutical companies have long lost their mission to cure diseases and operate towards brilliant medicinal discoveries.
It's all about money now. First came off label use. Pharmaceuticals that were good for one thing, were now peddled for a host of unrelated diseases or conditions, some of them legitimately, most of them not.
One example is the incredible proliferation of psychotropic drugs for off label use. One such use is the prescription of anti depressants for a slew of natural conditions, such as menopause and other mild to harmless conditions, for which medication is unnecessary and even harmful.
Another example is the almost ubiquitous employment of hardline opiates, such as Vicodin for the treatment of minor pain, such as after small dental procedures or for pain for which there is no organic or ascertained source, creating a whole generation of addicts for whom the opiates pose a grave danger.
The new era in marketing however, as far as big pharma is concerned, is to create a market or a condition, by twisting the true significance of a benign or non existant condition to create the premise for a demand in medications. One such 'condition' is andropause and one such 'medicine' is testosterone.
Praying on the vanity, or uncertainty, of the aging male, pharmaceutical companies have undertaken massive marketing campaigns that target those aging patients whose 'sex drive' or just 'pep' have been somewhat dimming as they go along in years.
The process of male aging, the lack of drive, or other normal aging manifestations in the 50+ and especially 60+ has been now targeted as some sort of 'lethal' deficiency of the male hormone testosterone, which normally declines, as it should after 50.
By creating the sense that the process of aging is due to a single factor, the 'decrease' in testosterone, the pharmaceutical companies are leading a whole generation of males to believe that if they take testosterone supplements, they will regain some measure of youthfulness.
But testosterone, even in small doses, can have some serious side effects. It can cause mood swings, anemia, weight gain, osteoporosis, and even hot flashes.
This campaign is now underway worldwide, indicating the seriousness of pharmaceutical marketing's intentions. In Germany for example, there are free clinics, where men over 40 can have their testosterone levels checked. However, at least they are given the alternative to testosterone supplementation as advice: exercise. No such benefit is given to US men, since the adverts in the US do not provide the viewers with that healthy alternative even as a suggestion.
The campaign, furthermore, is working: the sales of prescription testosterone has tripled in the last 7 years. In the US almost 3% of all men are using the supplements, which are even insurance reimbursed.
The other untold danger in testosterone supplementation is that if used in excess, meaning over the prescribed dosage or for a long time which is not hard to do, testosterone is teratogenic, and specifically it is known to cause prostate cancer. This is known, by the way, because many body builders who use testosterone to enhance growth, are in time diagnosed with prostate problems or cancer. It also raises blood pressure and is a known heart attack risk.
In truth, only men who have a history of gonadic atrophy or hypogonadism, i.e., people whose testicles do not produce normal levels of the hormone, are candidates for the therapy.
Male menopause, or andropause, was known as change of life period, a time when both physically and mentally a man must adapt to its changing body. The Romans even had a term for it: the "annus climactericus maximus". The year of greater change, in other wrods.
What is most interesting however, is that the andropause has a greater mental impact than a physical one, since changes in the male body begin much before 63, the Roman's adopted age of critical change. So by giving men testosterone supplements, the pharmaceutical company in essence delays what is the healthier evaluation and mental acceptance of one's changing condition, and creates a whole host of new problems that did not exist before the adoption of the therapy, considering the medication's numerous and serious side effects.
What is more interesting, in all this, is that the scientific research does not support the claims of testosterone's life changing benefits. In fact, it has been determined that it has only minimal and sometimes undetectable effects on the human body, sexual libido, and strength.
This scorched earth campaign is reminiscent to the one pharmaceutical companies adopted in the case of women's menopause. For decades, eager pharmas and doctors alike touted the benefits of using hormone replacement therapy for women undergoing menopause. The promise of course, even if not said, was that women would retain their youth longer. But the sad reality was that the theraphy caused breast cancer in many women. In fact, since the theraphy has been largely abandoned, the rate of breast cancer has dropped nearly 20%. This is a fact that was not widely heralded, but was published quietly by many journals and scientific papers.
Another pharmaceutical endeavor is the attempt to promote a mass vaccination campaign of seniors by creating the fear of possible herpes zoster outbreaks in later years. Such adverts, which are becoming more frequent, tout the herpes zoster as a debilitating illness which is almost inevitable, since they contend that almost everyone who has had chicken pox harbors the herpes zoster virus. That is not true. Although many do contract the hp virus through the open pustules of chicken pox, many chicken pox infections do not produce pustules, and can even be asymptomatic, and even in those who have had the pustules during infection not all of them are infected with the virus.
By creating fear in the elderly population, the pharmaceutical companies are preying on vulnerable citizens, who are at a loss to deal with an increasingly youth obsessed world.
Op-Ed
Partial Source : Spiegel intl/ 8.29.13
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