Over just the last few months, a rash of unethical corporate behaviors, all in some way involving monetary influences on health care, have come to light.
One was a disclosure about the Harvard Medical School showing that in the 1960s the sugar industry redirected researchers away from the conclusion that sugar contributed to heart disease. We are just now overcoming that bias after how many millions of deaths from heart disease? Whistleblowers inside the CDC filed an ethics complaint against the CDC over corporate influences on their governmental agency. The two major soda manufacturers have been funding nearly 100 national medical and public health organizations, influencing those organizations’ messages about sodas.
Despite the heavy and odious competition, the worst might be the latest episode of pharmaceutical companies acquiring a monopoly on a vitally important, but inexpensive drug, and then kicking the price through the roof. The unconscionable arrogance, in this case the drug manufacturer Mylan and EpiPen, is truly horrific.
The good news is that most doctors are starting to realize how naive they have been. There is a long road yet to travel.