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More than half of doctors in the U.S. receive money or other blandishments from Big Pharma and device manufacturers. The amounts can be stupendous: Some doctors have received tens of millions of dollars to implant certain devices or to promote certain drugs.

For those who think government agencies such as the FDA is there to protect the patient:

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...virtually all research is now conducted by industry and genuinely independent research has all but vanished.
...
Even most “independent” research, such as that conducted by the National Institutes of Health, is now “partnered” with industry, making our reliance on industry claims nearly complete.

Guess who the FDA relies upon for their judgements?

When a Medical “Cure” Makes Things Much, Much Worse

I'd bet there are a handful that receive large amounts and most of the rest get some free pens. The regulations have changed A LOT in the past few decades.

Not sure where the statistics are being generated, but I work in a medical community of around 200 physicians and I am not aware that ANY of them are on the take from pharmaceutical or medical equipment manufactures. True 20-30 years ago - but regulations about such things are pretty tightly controlled - we don't even get pens anymore!!

I'm pretty sure this doesn't happen, at least in the United States. There are some pretty serious consequences for the doctor, as well as the drug company.

I'm a drug rep, and I can get fired for even giving a doctor a free pen.... or giving coffee to an office and not reporting the names of the people that received the coffee, why I gave them coffee.

However, I do agree that people are over prescribed for just about everything.

As much as pills do help people, making a small, but consistent lifestyle change will fix many problems without the need for chemicals.

Apparently it does happen, or there would not be things like this: How To Find Out If Your Doctor Is Being Paid By Pharmaceutical Companies, no?

More:
Find out if your doctor takes payments from drug companies

Heading: "New government data show more than 500,000 U.S. physicians have industry ties"

Drug-Company Payments Mirror Doctors' Brand-Name Prescribing

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Doctors have long disputed the accusation that the payments they receive from pharmaceutical companies have any relationship to how they prescribe drugs.

How Doctors Make Money from Drug Companies

Heading: "Your doctor may be earning some extra cash to speak for pharmaceutical companies or advise them."

Well, the cure for my marginal high blood pressure caused me some very severe side effects, some of which I am still recovering from, and it has been about 6 weeks since I got off that crap.

Wife has a childhood girl friend in Germany, had the precise same results from the same medication, although she had been on it for 4 years.

Was at the doctor's for my quarterly check up about a week ago. Blood pressure was 127/72 without medication. They had me on 4 different medications at one point. We/I arbitrarily stopped taking all but the minimal glypizide (SP?) for marginal diabetes.

I have no idea of how much the doctors prescribe to get "rebates, etc" from big pharma, but ANY OF IT IS TOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I lose a few more pounds, get back into a systematic workout program I can/will probably get off the diabetic med as well.

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If I lose a few more pounds, get back into a systematic workout program I can/will probably get off the diabetic med as well

Well...why don't you do that then?

Or you can keep swallowing pills...

Whatever a doctor's relationship may be with a pharma company, everything is out for public disclosure. Nothing is hidden. Hell, if you wanted to, you could find out the flavor donut I brought to an office 3 years ago, and who in that office ate the donut.

No doctor is getting rebates for prescribing certain medications. I wish it worked that way.

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Originally posted by RAMIUS:

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If I lose a few more pounds, get back into a systematic workout program I can/will probably get off the diabetic med as well

Well...why don't you do that then?

Or you can keep swallowing pills...

Working at it!

Have lost about 10 lbs, so far. Getting back into a more vigorous workout routine as well.

Until one has experienced the side effects, one can not fully understand what they are, or what they do.

Good. Keep it up!

My mom got to the point where she didn't need diabetes meds or blood pressure meds through diet and exercise.

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Originally posted by ensigmatic:...

Guess who the FDA relies upon for their judgements?...

In many ways these days, research organizations, whether private industry, non-profit, or gov't, and whether in science, medicine, politics/economics, suffer from confirmation bias, just like the media. They have their own self-serving agenda and filter out/manipulate data that doesn't support their desired end result.

I asked my nephew who is a pediatric neurosurgeon if he ever gets a kickback and he said no, but he is not sure about his boss.

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Originally posted by Elk Hunter:
Well, the cure for my marginal high blood pressure caused me some very severe side effects, some of which I am still recovering from, and it has been about 6 weeks since I got off that crap.

Wife has a childhood girl friend in Germany, had the precise same results from the same medication, although she had been on it for 4 years.

My wife was on a prescribed medication, the side-effects from which she'll likely never recover, and, if she's not careful, may someday leave her a paraplegic

It was one-or-another of the acid reflux meds. Unfortunately a side-effect was severe magnesium depletion. When she switched doctors, because the old one was blowing her off over some concerns she kept raising, she got a late evening call from the new doctor telling her to get to the emergency room RIGHT AWAY, as her magnesium levels were so depressed she was in danger of imminent heart failure!

That same medication depleted her calcium levels so badly she now has a broken back. One wrong move and...

Turns out these are known side-effects of that medication.

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Originally posted by Elk Hunter:
Was at the doctor's for my quarterly check up about a week ago. Blood pressure was 127/72 without medication. They had me on 4 different medications at one point.

I have marginally high blood pressure. (Was up to averaging around 150/90 at one point.) With lisinopril (5mg) it's been averaging around 130/80. When I went on a carb-restricted diet, recently, with intermittent fasting, it all-of-a-sudden dropped to 115/70.

Turns out ketosis can lower your blood pressure. I posted this video in another thread, as well:

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A group of people who tried this method for three months not only lost weight and body fat, but also saw a decrease in blood pressure due to a hormone that's related to aging and disease.

So why don't doctors, who are supposed to be looking out for your health, prescribe diet and exercise before drugs? Drugs, like surgery, should be a last resort, not first.

I would note, btw, that I am not overweight by today's standards. 6'4" tall and only ±193 lbs. at the moment. But I am marginally overweight, well, fat, for my frame. I was down to hovering around 186 lbs. when my blood pressure dropped.

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So why don't doctors, who are supposed to be looking out for your health, prescribe diet and exercise before drugs? Drugs, like surgery, should be a last resort, not first.

Most doctors don't know much about diet and exercise themselves. Their job is to treat your situation with the means they have at their disposal.

Doctors do tell patients that they need to eat better and exercise. I'm sure most patients don't NEED to be told these things and deep down KNOW why they are having these problems.

Doctors are not nutritionists or personal trainers. People are lazy and want their problems fixed with a pill...not hard work and lifestyle changes.

Doctors are also not "all-knowing" gods who have special powers. They're regular people, who are most likely over-worked. They're prescribing people things that they personally feel is the BEST option for the patient.

Hell, most doctors I see have terrible diets and don't exercise.

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Originally posted by ensigmatic:So why don't doctors, who are supposed to be looking out for your health, prescribe diet and exercise before drugs? Drugs, like surgery, should be a last resort, not first.

I think many (most) do, but patient compliance is off the charts terrible. They can't afford to recommend D&E year after year while recording hypertension and not intervene. They would be up for a malpractice suit.

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Originally posted by MNSIG:

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Originally posted by ensigmatic:So why don't doctors, who are supposed to be looking out for your health, prescribe diet and exercise before drugs? Drugs, like surgery, should be a last resort, not first.

I think many (most) do, but patient compliance is off the charts terrible. They can't afford to recommend D&E year after year while recording hypertension and not intervene. They would be up for a malpractice suit.

EXACTLY. That was my next point.

Liability and patient adherence to any of these suggestions.

You tell someone who's never exercised or eaten healthy in their whole life that they need to eat in a whole new way and start exercising...let me know how that works out for you.

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Originally posted by RAMIUS:

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Originally posted by MNSIG:

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Originally posted by ensigmatic:So why don't doctors, who are supposed to be looking out for your health, prescribe diet and exercise before drugs? Drugs, like surgery, should be a last resort, not first.

I think many (most) do, but patient compliance is off the charts terrible. They can't afford to recommend D&E year after year while recording hypertension and not intervene. They would be up for a malpractice suit.

EXACTLY. That was my next point.

Liability and patient adherence to any of these suggestions.

You tell someone who's never exercised or eaten healthy in their whole life that they need to eat in a whole new way and start exercising...let me know how that works out for you.

Yup, and the whole "to a hammer everything looks like a nail" probably fits in there a bit too.

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Originally posted by RAMIUS:

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Originally posted by MNSIG:

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Originally posted by ensigmatic:So why don't doctors, who are supposed to be looking out for your health, prescribe diet and exercise before drugs? Drugs, like surgery, should be a last resort, not first.

I think many (most) do, ...

EXACTLY. That was my next point.

Three doctors over an approximate 25 year period: An osteopath and two MDs. When I was first diagnosed with high blood pressure was either diet or exercise addressed? Nope. (In fact, when I told the doc "Hell, I work harder than that stress test just walking up the hill to the other facility at work" he responded "Don't do that.")

I was off BP meds for a while. When my BP again rose, did the new doc ponder my moderate weight gain or changed fitness level and suggest I get back on a healthy regimen? Nope. Lisinopril.

When my BP rose again, despite the lisinopril, the latest doc went directly to "add another BP med to the lisinopril."

Not a single one of them so much as even mentioned diet and exercise, even in passing. The latest doc: Not even when, on a follow-up visit my BP had gotten back down to merely "moderately high" and he asked how I'd done it w/o adding another BP med. (Yes, really.)

In each case I thought myself to be moderately healthy and fit, so it honestly did not occur to me that changes in my body were necessitating upping my health/fitness game.

Other than my old family doc, from long ago, I've also never had a doctor recommend exercise and stretching for back problems. Drugs and cutting, drugs and cutting. And one of them was even an osteopath and chiropractic!

I have reasons, born of both personal and 2nd-hand experience, to have a healthy distrust of modern western medicine.

My former Doctor prescribed me cholesterol meds as my trigs were high. That very day I was called back to work (seasonal, construction) so I didn't bother with the script.
Three months later my blood work was excellent through weight loss and exercise, the Doctor was furious I didn't take her prescription.

I told her we won't be making a follow up.

People tend to forget that Doctors are running a business. Their medical practice is their business.

Never mind "Evil Big Pharma", the doctor is in business to a) Help patients b) Make a living

The doctor doesn't necessarily always mind that you need to come back for an appointment each and every month for scripts for the rest of your life.