The Medical-Industrial Complex: Today's New Threat

I use MSN.com as my internet home page and I’ve noticed that they seem to have quite a fixation on GERD. It seems that just about every other day, they have some link to a story about GERD – you can fight GERD, pregnancy and GERD, how to sleep with GERD.

What the heck is GERD? And why would I want to fight it and sleep with it? Is this some kind of new-age approach to marital problems?

Well, I finally clicked on one of those links and found that GERD stands for gastro-esophageal reflux disease. I think it used to be called heartburn. Apparently, it must be the primary health threat facing America, given MSN’s urgency in helping us in our war on this old ailment with the new name.

But then I noticed that every one of the articles on GERD was framed in a pretty, light purple color. A purple that is identical to the color of the little purple pill called Nexium, a product of the pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca. It turns out that they are the primary, if not only, sponsor of the pages with these articles on GERD. And what, pray tell, is Nexium prescribed for? Can you spell G-E-R-D?

Now I remember the days when you spelled relief R-O-L-A-I-D-S. But in today’s world, why spend a buck on a pack of Rolaids, when you can spend $120 for a vial of Nexium?

The answer is both simple and complex. Simple, because we want more effective treatments for that which ails us. Complex, because the healthcare industry is all-too-eager to squeeze more and more dollars out of our pockets.

It’s common in every industry – from McDonald’s asking if we want to super-size our order, to the car dealer suggesting that we test drive the car with leather seats. But the healthcare industry is taking it to new and dangerous heights, and if we’re not careful, we’ll end up bankrupting ourselves and our economy.

It’s a new variation on Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about the threat of the military-industrial complex. But instead of playing on our fears of death at the hands of the Soviets to create a military behemoth, we have the medical-industrial complex playing on our fear of death and disease in order to satisfy shareholders’ demands for greater profits.

Certainly, the profit motive has served us well in bringing new medical breakthroughs to the market. Without it, we’d have no MRI’s, no anti-AIDS treatments, no new cancer breakthroughs. But where does it stop?

There is a frightening synergy to MSN’s mix of news and commerce. Microsoft posts headlines about GERD as news items, then links them to pages paid for by Nexium. Those who suffer then seek (or is it demand) a Nexium prescription from their doctor.

I won't argue that publicly traded companies don't have a responsibility to increase shareholder value, but at some point, shareholder gains must be balanced with the public’s resources. We risk reaching a day when our economy is so centered around health care that it starves resources for other endeavors - and due to its immensity, believed too important to the economy and too influential to be reined in.

For example, Pfizer had U.S. sales of about $26 billion last year. To achieve a sales increase of ten percent this year, they would need to sell nearly ten dollars of additional product to every man, woman and child in the U.S. That’s just one company – and we have to wonder if hitting their target will be in our best interest or just theirs.

There was a time when we would treat gangrene with a shot of whiskey and a hacksaw. Today, it’s with antibiotic IV drips and microsurgery. Thank heaven for that, but if we’re not careful, we may find that whiskey is our only refuge from the financial pain.